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THE NEW 

DEMOCRACY IN THE 
TEACHING OF ENGLISH 









THE NEW 

DEMOCRACY IN THE 
TEACHING OF ENGLISH 


By 

WALTER BARNES 

Head of English Department , Fairmont State Normal School , 
Fairmont , West Virginia. Author of “English in the 
Country SchoolCollector and Editor of “Types 
of Children's Literature." Editor of Pal grave’s 
“Golden TreasuryChurchill's “The 
Crisis'' etc. 


RAND MCNALLY & COMPANY 

CHICAGO NEW YORK 


Copyright, 1023, by 
Rand McNally & Company 





Mads in U. S, A. 


APR 26 ’23 

©Cl A 7 05102 


-Vv* \ 



To 

Mr. Joseph Rosier 

Advocate and exponent of democracy 
in education 






THE CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Introduction .ix 

I. Making English Democratic.1 

II. The Palace of Pedagogy.22 

III. Democratic Ideals [of Culture and Efficiency: 

Their Relation to English.60 

Outlines for Study.93 











THE INTRODUCTION 

The three addresses in this volume attempt to treat 
the most important general principles underlying the 
liberalization and democratization of the English subjects 
in the elementary and the high school, with implications 
which reach up even to the college and university. They 
are to be thought of, not as an exposition of the entire 
theme, but as an argument for the fundamental ideas 
involved. 

Two of the three addresses have been printed before. 
The first one in this volume, after being read under the 
title “The New Democracy in the Teaching of English” 
before the English Section of the Education Association 
of Western Pennsylvania in 1918, was printed in booklet 
form by the Board of Public Education of Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania, with a foreword by William M. Davidson, 
superintendent of the schools of Pittsburgh. The address 
on “Democratic Ideals of Culture and Efficiency: Their 
Relation to English” was read before the English Club of 
West Virginia University in 1919, and printed in the 
November and December numbers of Education of that 
year. ‘ ‘ The Palace of Pedagogy ’ ’ was read before the West 
Virginia State Education Association in 1920, and since 
that time before other audiences. It has not before been 
printed. 

The author has thought it best, in bringing the addresses 
together in this volume, to leave them substantially as 
they were in content, spirit, and style. They are perhaps 
somewhat controversial in attitude, and they may be at 
times somewhat conversational in tone. But to recast 


IX 


X 


The Introduction 


them would not only be a work of some magnitude; it 
would, in the opinion of the author, rob them of whatever 
vigor and directness they have. For that reason he is 
presenting them here virtually as they first appeared, the 
only alterations being unimportant ones in phrasing. 

He is the more willing to send his ideas forth in this 
form because he designs to publish soon a more complete 
and formal exposition of the theme, with the aim of 
indicating how these general principles may be applied 
in detail to actual schoolroom conditions. The present 
volume may therefore be regarded as but the statement 
of the author’s creed and an argument for the spirit 
which he believes should animate the teaching of English. 

The author gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness, 
for his general conception of democracy in education, to 
A. Duncan Yocum. He has obtained much, in ideas 
and inspiration, through books published by him, through 
personal discussion with him, and through service under 
him in the work of the National Council of Education’s 
Committee on the Teaching of Democracy. 


Fairmont, West Virginia 
January 15, 1923 


W. B. 



THE NEW 

DEMOCRACY IN THE 
TEACHING OF ENGLISH 

I. MAKING ENGLISH DEMOCRATIC 

Democracy in government. A few years ago the 
American people was engaged in a war which had as its 
primary and avowed object the making of the world safe 
for democracy. 

This slogan, “The world safe for democracy,” clearly 
implies that we believe that democracy is the best and 
wisest government, and that America, the greatest 
democracy of the world, stands forth as the champion of 
democracy throughout the world—indeed, as the exem¬ 
plar of democracy to the world. We are tacitly saying to 
all nations, “The principles and institutions of democ¬ 
racy are worth preserving, worth extending, and worth 
imitating.” And this is well: we must, though in no 
arrogant fashion, set ourselves to the large task of 
convincing the world that democracy is the happiest, 
most successful, most reasonable form of government. 

But the instant we step forward as the model of democ¬ 
racy, to assist in making democracy attractive and influen¬ 
tial, it behooves us to turn our eyes inward, strictly to 
examine ourselves, our beliefs, our ideals, our institutions, 
to determine whether all is well with us, whether, in all 
vital matters, we are a genuinely democratic people. 

Now, democracy is more than a government in which 
all are citizens, in which all have a right to vote and hold 
office. A democracy is a government which allows and 

1 


2 


The New Democracy in 


encourages and assists each individual citizen to develop 
himself to the utmost limits of his individual capacities 
and opportunities. Differentiation, infinite variety, chance 
and inspiration for each man (and for each woman) to 
reach his tallest height, to do his own best work of his 
own kind, yea, and the education which makes one 
conscious of his specific talents, which provides those 
talents with nourishment and exercise, which equips one 
to travel as far as he can along the particular path on 
which the Creator set his feet—this is the essence of true 
democracy. 

Are the schools democratic? An accurate measure of 
a people’s democracy is the democracy of its public 
institutions. One of the most convenient and trust¬ 
worthy tests of a nation’s policies and ideals and principles 
may be made by an examination of her public schools, 
the largest, most representative, and farthest-reaching 
institution supported by the people. America is as dem¬ 
ocratic as her public schools. Are her public schools 
democratic? 

Yes, in general. They are free to all classes, and, since 
they are attended by all classes, the democratic spirit 
prevails; the articulation between the parts of the sys¬ 
tem is very close, so that any child may climb from 
the first grade through the university; the teachers are 
recruited from the ranks; school discipline has become 
liberal. Even the curriculum is becoming democratized^ 
with the entrance of new subjects, so that now we give— 
in theory, at least—an opportunity for each child to 
travel along the natural channels of his interests and 
abilities. In all these matters we have made remarkable 
progress, though we have much farther to go. 



The Teaching of English 


3 


Is English teaching democratic? The one subject 
that has stood firm, while the current of popular opinion 
has swept away other traditional subjects from the 
course of study, is English. English, we have thought, is 
truly a democratic subject. Its two main divisions, litera¬ 
ture and composition, provide what every child needs, 
whether that child is to be a laborer in the mines, 
a clerk in the store, a housewife in the kitchen, or a 
preacher in the pulpit. No matter what a child’s rearing 
has been, what his present interests and tastes are, what 
his future will bring, English, we have felt, has an invalu¬ 
able contribution for him—for each, as Uncle Remus 
would say, “’cordin’ ter the breed an’ the need.” 
English, therefore, we have said, is a genuinely demo¬ 
cratic subject. 

But it is just here that I take issue. English may be 
democratic, provide education for all, for each the kind 
he needs; or it may be aristocratic, provide education 
for a limited few, for a selected group. It depends upon 
the English, upon the material, the aims, the methods. 
Very often, nearly always, in fact, English has been an 
aristocratic subject. That is why it is necessary to 
contend for the democratization of the English subjects, 
for a clearer recognition of the diversified interests and 
powers of all our pupils. 

I have said that the English subjects have not been 
sufficiently democratic. Does the statement need proof? 
It is easily found. 

Language-composition branch. Let us take first the 
language-composition branch of English. Have we made 
it fit in with the needs and the capacities of all our pupils, 
or even of the majority of them? Far from it. We have, 



The New Democracy in 


for one thing, overemphasized writing. Very few persons 
have need for much writing, while virtually all have 
urgent need for talking; yet we have ignored the claims 
and necessities of the many to satisfy the wishes of the 
few. Is this democratic? Or, consider the forms of 
discourse we emphasize. Many of us force our pupils 
over a steeplechase of story writing, of literary descrip¬ 
tions, of formal orations and debates, which, if of value 
at all, is of value only to the scanty few who are to be 
professional writers and speakers, the while we ignore 
letter writing, the telling of anecdotes and personal 
experiences, and the important arts of conversation and 
discussion, which are of inestimable value to all persons, 
regardless of what their vocation in life is to be. Is this 
democratic? The strongest reason for the making of 
expositions is that the process involved in finding and 
limiting a topic, and in gathering and arranging material, 
is of value to everyone, since it parallels the process of 
constructive thinking; yet we neglect this important 
contribution to the education of all in order to give to 
a small group training in mere verbal expression. Is 
this democratic? 

Theme subjects. Or, again, reflect upon the subjects 
we assign for themes. Topics pulled bodily from litera¬ 
ture: analysis of characters in Scott’s romances, repro¬ 
duction of stories, book reports and criticisms, debates 
on whether Brutus or Mark Anthony made the better 
oration; topics found by the “book-minded” English 
teacher in a text in rhetoric manufactured by a still 
more “book-minded” teacher, topics of interest only 
to those concerned with literary matters: these are the 
theme subjects most popular with high-school teachers 



The Teaching of English 


5 


of English. Does anyone fancy that thinking on these 
subjects (if thinking it may be called) is of interest or of 
great worth to that vast majority of boys and girls who 
have no literary proclivities? But the English teacher— 
who would not be an English teacher if he were not 
genuinely interested in these topics—has found them 
stimulating and valuable to him, and he has his eye¬ 
glasses on two or three bookworms in his class whom he 
can hypnotize into a pretense of attention. So he goes 
happily on his way, unperturbed by the obvious fact 
that all this lies outside the charmed circle of the 
experience and interests of the average child. Is this 
democratic ? 

Rhetoric. Finally, observe how we stress the purely 
rhetorical qualities in our teaching of language and 
composition. With what complacency do we teach all 
the details of “purity, propriety, and precision," the 
various kinds of paragraph development and of sentence 
structure, the proper ratio of Latin and Anglo-Saxon 
words in the ideal vocabulary, and all the other glorious 
rubbish, which has but doubtful value even for the 
extremely literary student, while we pay but perfunctory 
attention to spelling, to pronunciation, to straightforward, 
natural, free expression, which has undoubted value for 
all. Is this democratic? 

Literature. And what of literature, the other branch 
of English? Surely it is democratic? It may be; indeed, 
I believe it is more democratic than language and compo¬ 
sition, and that it is yearly becoming more conscious of 
the desires and demands of the majority of average 
persons who constitute the student body. But we must 
further and more fully democratize it. 



6 


The New Democracy in 


A caution. And yet, in our effort to democratize litera¬ 
ture, there is one grave danger of which we must beware. 
Some would persuade us that all our education must be 
extremely practical and utilitarian: that anything which 
cannot prove itself from this standpoint must be banished 
from the curriculum, and that we must either make 
literature immediately and directly practical or give it 
up. This I utterly deny. “ Life is more than meat and 
the body than raiment,” whether one be a ditch digger 
or a Chautauqua lecturer. Democracy does not imply 
making everything useful; leisure, taste, culture, and the 
pursuit of happiness are as vital to the laborer in the 
fields as to the judge upon the bench. We must democ¬ 
ratize literature, not by making it aridly utilitarian, but 
by selecting the kind of literature that will have the 
widest appeal among all classes. Literature is, by its 
very nature, cultural, as truly as composition is, by its 
very nature, practical. Literature arouses healthy, whole¬ 
some emotions and develops and guides them; it satisfies 
the craving for beauty, reveals spiritual truth, trains 
taste, and provides a fine, pure, permanent pleasure. 
Literature teaching is genuinely democratic when it 
makes its contribution of culture to all. 

When we scrutinize the material, the purposes, and the 
methods of literature teaching, we discover that in many 
respects it, like language teaching, is undemocratic in the 
extreme. 

Materials in use in teaching of the literature. In the 

first place, the literature generally placed in the course of 
study is not of the kind that will touch the emotions of 
most children, gratify their feeling for beauty, and per¬ 
form all the other gracious services that literature should 



The Teaching of English 


7 


perform. The list of classics to be studied for entrance 
to college, for example, or the list prescribed in almost 
any high-school course contains a large proportion of 
books and selections not suitable for the ninety per cent 
of unliterary boys and girls. Take a certain popular 
anthology as a case in point. Of the three hundred and 
thirty-nine lyrics in this volume, it is doubtful whether 
more than one hundred deal with themes and moods and 
feelings of intrinsic interest to most children of high-school 
age. Or call the roll of authors. Spenser and Chaucer 
have much that is admirable for children, if well-chosen 
specimens of it were put before them, and if it were not 
locked up in an obsolete language. Shakespeare has much, 
Milton almost nothing, Dryden and Pope and Addison 
and Samuel Johnson very little, the early novelists 
nothing, Scott much in both prose and verse; and so 
on, down to and into present-day writers. We have only to 
reflect upon these matters for a moment to see that, of 
English and American authors of equal rank, some make 
a strong appeal to average children and are therefore in 
a sense “democratic,” while others render the services of 
literature only to the elect few, to those reared in a more 
or less bookish home, to those with a literary learning, or, 
at least, leaning. 

The old and the new. A similar situation is revealed 
when we observe the age-old battle of the books, the con¬ 
flict between the old and the modern. In Dean Swift’s 
satire and Sainte-Beuve’s brilliant essay the ancients con¬ 
quer. And so they do in the opinion of all authors and all 
teachers of English, and the few young people in high 
school and college who are pronouncedly literary in their 
tastes and tendencies. Personally we may care more for 


2 



8 


The New Democracy in 


Chaucer than for Masefield, for Fielding than for Bennett, 
for the Spectator than for the Cosmopolitan . But we of 
the literary gentry must beware lest we commit the most 
insidious of all pedagogical sins: the sin of imputing to 
our pupils the interests and inclinations and outlooks-on- 
life which we have now or had as children. And to this 
sin we are continually tempted. 

Of course, some of the classic literature of the past is 
as much alive today as when it was penned; it is forever 
contemporaneous. It stands out like great mountain 
ranges; the world may travel along its foothills for cen¬ 
turies without getting out of sight of it. Literature 
is alive as long as it has life, and it has life as long 
as it influences life. But many of the masterpieces 
of classic literature, beautiful specimens of literary 
craftsmanship, have lost all significance except to the 
specialist in literary history or the lover of style. The 
virtue has gone out of them, their glory has departed. 
These writings we should unhesitatingly banish from the 
required courses in literature in all public schools. They 
make literature teaching undemocratic in that they appeal 
only to the highly specialized few. 

Chronological organization of literature undemocratic. 
This leads naturally to another criticism of the literature 
in many courses of study: it is usually organized by 
chronology, so that the authors and periods may be 
studied in their time sequence. This also is undemocratic. 
Nine-tenths of our students care nothing about the lives 
of authors or the historical and literary backgrounds, and 
the knowledge crammed down their reluctant throats is 
almost never digested and metabolized into intellectual 
and emotional cellular structure. For nearly all it fails 



The Teaching of English 


9 


to be cultural, it fails to be practical; yet we keep on 
teaching it because, forsooth, we enjoy it and appreciate 
it, and because a few of our students gulp it down when 
we serve it to them. 

Our teaching methods objectionable. Our method of 
dealing with literature, after we have chosen it, is open 
to similar objection. We analyze it and dissect it; we 
examine it with microscopes and telescopes and stetho¬ 
scopes, with audiphones and colorimeters. We weigh 
each fact on the apothecary’s scales; we employ the 
metronome to discover whether the poetic feet be 
trochaic or iambic, and the yardstick to measure off 
tetrameters and pentameters; we chart the rime scheme 
of the sonnet and the Pindaric ode; we trace every 
allusion to the “last point of vision and beyond ; we pry 
and peer into the mechanism of every figure of speech 
to see whether it be metaphor or simile—and why. 

Now this is pleasant fun for us who care for the niceties 
of literary style, and it makes a considerable contribution 
to that particular brand of education to which we may 
lay claim. This is the way to perceive the fine points of 
art; I would not discount its value—for us; and I should 
hesitate to recommend a teacher of English who could 
not perform all these pretty exercises. But very few of 
the students in our high schools, or colleges, for that 
matter, are interested in the technicalities of literary 
craftsmanship. What the great mass of students should 
get—all they can get—from literature is the stimulation 
of wholesome emotions, the invigoration of lofty ideals, 
the satisfaction of their instinct for beauty, and joy 
“that after no repentance draws”— in short, the content- 
aspect of literature, not the form-aspect. If the average 




10 


The New Democracy in 


boy or girl does not get this from literature, he gets 
nothing, nothing of worth. And yet apparently we 
prefer to train a few of our kind of students to use the 
critical microscope than the many to use their eyes. 
Undemocratic again, aristocratic again. 

In consequence of all this we are failing to train in 
the proper and natural reading habits, the habits that 
are of use when the children leave school. Assuredly 
they will not use the intensive method of studying 
literature when they leave school; if they read at all, 
they will read much, read rapidly, read the lighter 
forms. Our class teaching of literature fails to “carry 
over” into life, fails to “modify the behavior” of our 
students. And if we fail to establish a method and 
proper habits while the children are in school, we have 
failed in one of our most important functions, so far as 
the majority of children is concerned. 

Literature which is too “literary.” But let me make 
myself clear, even at the cost of repetition. I am not pro¬ 
posing to eliminate the classics and substitute Harold Bell 
Wright; I am not proposing to gallop through the miles 
of jejune, ephemeral stories and articles of recent litera¬ 
ture; I am not proposing a method whereby we leave 
out thoughtful discussion and criticism of what is read. 
And I am far from proposing that we replace literature 
with informational reading-matter on the score that it 
is “practical.” Not at all. What I am contending 
for is good literature, to be treated as literature, from 
which we expect the natural fruits of literature: taste 
and discrimination, steadily improving; increase in 
emotional sanity and intensity and range; nourish¬ 
ment of the appetite for the romantic, the beautiful, 



The Teaching of English 


11 


the ideal: in a word, contributions to culture. But the 
mischief is that we have been putting before children 
literature that is too “literary,” too mature, too sophisti¬ 
cated, dealing with themes too narrow in their appeal, so 
that the children have not been receiving these contri¬ 
butions. 

Not that I would feed the children upon baby food, 
upon that which is merely “easy”; now and then it is 
good for them to stand on tiptoe. But we must begin 
with what the children have and are. Culture, like 
charity, begins at home. Little matter what we English 
teachers enjoy and from what we abstract culture. We 
may get more exquisite pleasure from our classics than 
children get from the more childish literature they enjoy 
— I for one am strong in the faith that we do get a far 
more exquisite pleasure; the nub of the matter is that 
most students cannot get our pleasure, our culture, 
from many of our favorites. Therefore I propose that 
we put before them that from which they can secure 
cultural rewards, rewards not so rich as ours, but the 
richest they can get. 

Have I not adduced sufficient proof that our teaching 
of English, in both language and composition and in 
literature, is undemocratic in the extreme? Is it not 
evident that in almost every phase of our work we have 
our eyes fastened upon the few students (we call them 
the bright ones, the talented ones, whereas they are 
really only bright and talented in a special way, a literary 
way, our way) and pay but cursory attention to the 
multitude who are not literary-minded, perhaps not even 
eye-minded, and who therefore—the more’s the pity — 
especially need our help? 



12 


The New Democracy in 


Training leaders? “But,” our classical friends pro¬ 
test, “a democracy must have leaders: we are training 
the leaders.” Of course, a democracy must have leaders; 
Russia furnishes abundant demonstration of this. But 
two counterstatements need to be made. In the first 
place, it is extremely doubtful that we are training the 
leaders, even the leaders in the literary professions, by 
this method; in the second place, training leaders at the 
expense of the followers, which is the most effective of 
principles for nourishing aristocracy, is the most dan¬ 
gerous for a democracy. A truly democratic education 
trains both leaders and followers. 

Facing the issue. We must democratize the teaching 
of English, we must have a broader appreciation of the 
needs of the “many-headed” crowd that throngs our 
.schools. While the secondary school was aristocratic in 
the personnel of its student body, it could be aristo¬ 
cratic in purposes and curriculum, it could train the four 
per cent for the professions while it forced the ninety-six 
per cent of tradespeople to learn their calling through the 
long training of apprenticeship or the longer training of 
experience. But when “all the children of all the people” 
come to us for teaching and training, for preparation for 
their vocations, for coal mining or iron working or house¬ 
keeping or farming—and they have as much right to come 
as the elect—we should not serve out to them that which 
we have prepared for a far different circle of diners. We 
must teach them that kind of English which will give 
them efficiency and culture in their own walks of life. 

I am not forgetful of what has been accomplished 
through providing special courses in English in high 
school and college for certain vocations, such, for example, 



The Teaching of English 


13 


as business English and engineering English. This is 
good; but it conies far short of solving the problem of 
the democratization of English. The vast majority of 
those who are to form the “common run” of citizens are 
not affected by this. We must make the traditional and 
the required courses in English more democratic. 

How? By a square facing of the facts relative to the 
immense diversity of personalities, of natures, of motives 
and ambitions and desires and needs among our public- 
school students. By a recognition of the law that each 
separate fascicle of tastes and talents requires its own 
kind of education, that a person is educated by that 
which contributes to his own life and experience. By 
a realization of the fact that the training of Kate to 
be a housewife or Bill to be a plumber is precisely as 
important as the education of Kathryn to be a lady of 
fashion or Willy to be a preacher. By carrying out the 
doctrine that work is work, power is power, service is 
service, success is success, wherever found; that a given 
amount of intelligent activity is equal to the same amount 
of intelligent activity, whether in a doctor’s office or in a 
railroad locomotive, whether in an editor’s chair or on 
an office stool, whether playing the piano or washing 
the clothes. Then by a resolute remodeling of our 
course of study and a facing about in our aims and 
purposes; by adopting an elective, or at. least an eclectic 
system. 

Let us see what this means in practice. First, in the 
language-composition activities. 

Democratizing language-composition activities. We 
should allow and encourage each child to find his own 
subjects for writing and speaking. When we first 



14 


The New Democracy in 


attempt this, the class is at a loss; the children do not 
realize the richness of their lives and experiences and 
the potentiality of their possessions for language expres¬ 
sion. But if we are patient and tactful, if we lead them 
for a time by suggestion, direct them by indirection, 
they soon find themselves and their powers and launch 
forth, each on his own fledgling wings, each toward his 
own goal. And oh, the joy they feel, as, with each flight, 
their pinions grow and strengthen and their skill in 
flying increases, as they see spreading out before them a 
wider expanse of earth and sky! 

An illustration. Recently in his weekly batch of 
themes an English teacher found the following: a social 
letter; a business letter ordering dress goods from a 
supply house; an article for the local paper advertising 
an exhibit of Raemakers ’ 1 cartoons; a criticism of the 
four-minute speeches made in the local theaters; an 
editorial for the school paper; a comparison of the school 
paper with another one; a history of one of the literary 
societies for the yearbook; an exposition on “Why the 
Blank Car Is the Best Car for the Money”; an analysis 
of a new reference set just put into the library; a book 
report on Christine; an Easter story; an account of the 
Salvation Army campaign in-; a report of an investi¬ 

gation of how the students raised their money for the 
Y.M.C.A. fund; a humorous sketch, entitled “How We 
May Know There Has Been a Smallpox Scare in the 
Normal”; a study of the words misspelled by the class; 
an article for the school paper on the baseball pros¬ 
pects for the spring; and a sample page of history 
notes. 

1 The reader will remember that this was written in 1918. 




The Teaching of English 


15 


I need not point out the advantages of this system. 
It is obvious that by thus allowing the students to express 
themselves on subjects of personal interest we encourage 
them to develop themselves in the directions indicated 
as best for them by their powers and experiences. 

Democratic ‘‘forms of discourse.” As to the forms 
of discourse, we should make few requirements and 
those in the interests of the greatest good for the 
greatest number. We should have enough story writ¬ 
ing to determine whether any students have talent 
in this (and it is extremely rare); then we should 
encourage those who have talent to contribute stories 
when they feel a strong impulse, releasing the other 
members of the class from this form of writing. Literary 
descriptions and essays and formal debates and orations 
we should handle in somewhat the same way. The 
forms we should compel all students to pay attention to 
are: the writing of business and social letters, for this 
training is certain to be needed by all; the making of 
explanations, largely oral, emphasizing the compositional 
features of the work rather than the expressional features; 
and conversation and discussion, all-important and almost 
altogether neglected. And we should look as kindly 
upon a first-rate explanation of “How to Clean a Gun” 
or “How to Make Griddlecakes” as upon a patriotic 
oration or a short story—the chances are it will be a 
better thing of its kind. 

Oral and written modes of expression. Moreover, 
we should spend much more time upon the various 
details of oral language than upon those of written 
language. This also has to do with the democ¬ 
ratization of language teaching; for only a few need 



16 


The New Democracy in 


extensive training in writing, while all need extensive 
training in speech. If one student wishes to give expres¬ 
sion to his thoughts in talk and another in writing, we 
should sanction and encourage both. No matter if 
our themes deal with every conceivable subject, molded 
in every conceivable form. The points at issue are: Is 
the theme good of its kind ? Is it natural to the person ? 
Is it along the lines of his interests and powers? Is he 
urged on by a strong motive? 

“Formal elements.” A similar attitude should be taken 
toward the technical details of language teaching. Let us 
not busy ourselves with the petty niceties of literary style, 
of concern to a small number only, when most of the 
children need long-continued training in spelling, punc¬ 
tuation, pronunciation and enunciation, sentence struc¬ 
ture, and the arrangement of ideas in a series of symmetri¬ 
cal paragraphs. Most children cannot hope to attain to 
literary excellence. Let us give this literary training 
to those who show promise, but let us not force the 
others over the same route. And if either class must 
be neglected, let us neglect the smaller class. 

The problem of models. For the most part, classic 
literary models have no place in a democratic method of 
teaching language. We know that Franklin and Steven¬ 
son, that pair of “sedulous apes,” trained themselves by 
the study and imitation of literary models, and that 
authors will continue this practice. But these are 
mature, studious men, zealous for literary success, endowed 
with native literary gifts, interested in subjects similar to 
those treated in the models they are using. Only a tiny 
group of students will be benefited by this aping of litera¬ 
ture; the overwhelming majority do not learn language 



The Teaching of English 


17 


this way. They learn it by expressional activity through 
guidance; and if any models are to be used, the most 
helpful ones are found in good conversation and in 
writing which is not so “literary.” 

Summary of doctrine on democratizing language teach¬ 
ing. Of course, no one is so foolish as to believe that we 
should allow a child to follow his own devices entirely in 
these matters. There is a body of minimum essentials 
to be mastered by all, whether they are interesting or 
not, because there is almost absolute assurance that they 
are needed and will be needed in the everyday life of 
every person. But we should permit and desire each 
child to speak and write on subjects interesting to him, 
in his own way, for his own purposes; and we should allot 
as much credit to one good piece of work as another. 
This is what I mean by democratization of the language- 
composition group of English. 

Democratizing literature teaching. The same general 
principle is applicable to the teaching of literature— 
though in this subject, since the natural results are so 
hard to measure and the spiritual and cultural effects 
upon personality are so subtle, the principle is more 
difficult to apply. In general, the course in literature 
should consist of two kinds of work. 

First, class work. A bit of literature can have no effect 
upon a child if it makes no appeal to him, if it fails 
to come home to his heart and bosom. The principles 
of democracy demand, therefore, that for class study no 
literature be required the theme and tone and emotions 
of which are foreign to the majority of the class. Each 
required selection, with certain exceptions, should be a 
classic, formothing but a classic will justify and reward 



18 


The New Democracy in 


intensive class study; but it must be universally interest¬ 
ing to young folks. Silas Marner and Burke’s famous 
speech — to cite but two examples—are certainly not 
such specimens, while Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and 
many of Tennyson’s poems as certainly are. 

But it is doubtful whether there are many such speci¬ 
mens. Let us make out a course of class reading and 
study composed of those selections which are really 
democratic in their appeal, in that they produce results 
upon every member of the class—not necessarily the 
same results or an equal sum of results. Let us study 
these, not too intensively, seeking to emphasize the 
cultural and artistic and content phases. One day, or 
at most two days, a week throughout the course will 
suffice for this. And when we have provided this—the 
literary “minimum essentials,” so to speak—we should 
turn the students loose and let them follow their own 
paths. 

Second, individual reading. A child, like an adult, has 
his individual tastes in books, and he has a right to their 
gratification, provided, of course, they are not perverted. 
What is one man’s meat is another’s poison. What gives 
cultural enjoyment to one fails utterly with another. 
This robust, athletic young fellow may prefer the out- 
of-door tale, the Indian story, the soldier story; that 
romantic boy may desire to race through Dumas and 
Scott; this girl may wish strong doses of Jules Verne or 
Rider Haggard; yonder quiet maiden may cleave to the 
immortal Louisa M. Alcott. Some children like history, 
others are fond of books of humor, some indulge themselves 
in poetry, others steep themselves in love stories. Any 
librarian, any student of human nature, can inform you 




The Teaching of English 


19 


how varied, how heterogeneous, are the reading interests 
of children in their teens. 

Guiding the reading. But I am not advocating an 
extreme hands-off policy. Children should not be allowed 
to read as part of their literature course anything that is 
not literature—not necessarily great literature, but sound, 
wholesome, good literature. The teacher must be liberal 
and catholic and democratic in her sympathies, willing 
to lower her strict standards somewhat and to accept 
as pleasant and profitable for others what she personally 
may find a bit trite or melodramatic. We must meet the 
children a little more than halfway, and then, as rapidly 
as possible, lead them on and up to higher reading 
levels. 

Nor must we allow children to indulge themselves to 
the point of satiety in any form of literature. We must 
suggest and insinuate and guide, lead them on, always in 
the grooves of their interests, from book to book, from 
author to author, and see that each child is properly 
introduced to the vast array of good literature within 
the scope of his interests. Every book read must be 
approved by the teacher, but the teacher must be pre¬ 
pared to approve much that she personally does not 
fancy. 

Most of this individual reading will be in fiction, 
much of it in recent fiction. This is desirable, for it is 
recent fiction that most of the students will read when 
they are .students no longer, and we should attempt to 
train in separating the good from the worthless and 
inane. There should be much magazine reading, some 
of it in class; but we should include no magazine that 
is not healthful and sound. The children with literary 



20 


The New Democracy in 


tastes will, of course, be encouraged to breathe the fine, 
bracing atmosphere of the great literature. 

I would put before the students a library full of a 
variety of good books—many of them light, but all of 
them good. I would direct their reading through indi¬ 
vidual conferences, and once or twice a week I would 
have the class meet for reports, reviews, discussions, and 
exchange of book talk. Each child would be expected 
to read a certain number of books—not necessarily the 
same number, and not necessarily specified books. In 
this way each boy and girl would have an opportunity to 
gratify his hunger, to receive the particular training in 
forming reading habits which he needs, and to extract 
the largest degree of literary profit from his reading. 
That is what I mean by democracy in literature. 

Some of my friends, when they have heard me speak 
in this fashion and have seen my own classes in action, 
have told me that I am degrading the teaching of litera¬ 
ture, that I am putting the lofty, permanent classics on 
a level with the lowly, transitory productions of the day. 
Not at all. I personally happen to care infinitely more 
for some of the classics than for any modern books. I 
believe that some of them are masterpieces, matchless in 
their beauty, and that my joy in reading them is finer 
and subtler than the joy of the young fellow absorbed in 
his Sherlock Holmes or his Penrod. Moreover, I wish— 
sometimes, at least—that I could bring that young 
fellow, one of my students perhaps, to my appreciation 
of the classics. But I need not expect to, and possibly 
I should not desire to. His culture is not my culture, 
though his may be as genuine as mine. And besides, even 
though I love Shakespeare, may I not enjoy also the 



The Teaching of English 


21 


Saturday Evening Post f I believe Shakespeare would 
have enjoyed it; I think I could prove it. 

Will it work ? If one warns me that this democratic 
freedom will not work in practice, I tell him that I have 
seen it work. If one tells me that, this individual method 
requires more time and labor than the already burdened 
English teacher can stand, I tell him the teacher should 
approximate this ideal as closely as possible. The truth 
is, we can come nearer to doing all that I have proposed 
than we think, once we cut loose from the traditional, 
aristocratic material and methods that have hampered 
us. And at the same time we can encourage and assist 
the few literary students in our classes to go as far in 
their personal development as the unliterary go in theirs. 
This is true democracy in the teaching of English: that 
each student get from the English subjects that training 
and that life of most worth to him—to him, not to some 
one else. 

If America is to represent democracy, it must present, 
in all her institutions and in all the details and depart¬ 
ments of her institutions, democratic ideals and standards 
in action and application. It is clear that the English 
subjects in our schools are not, in substance or in spirit, 
completely democratic. It is also clear that they may 
be made democratic, so thoroughly democratic that 
their influence will permeate the schools and the world 
around and beyond the schools. So rich in democratic 
implications and possibilities are the English subjects, so 
potentially powerful for democratic education, that we 
have but to follow along the paths they point out and 
let them lead us to the goal. 



22 


The New Democracy in 


II. THE PALACE OF PEDAGOGY 

The Palace of Art. “I built my soul a lordly pleasure- 
house”—thus begins Tennyson’s poem “The Palace of 
Art.” A beautiful palace! It was erected upon a lofty 
plateau which rose sheer from the plain, and upon this 
plateau the poet-architect laid out four spacious courts, 
in each of which was a fountain. The palace was full of 
long-sounding corridors, full of great rooms and small, 
all varied, each a perfect whole. Rich tapestry and 
arras, depicting landscapes and legendary scenes, cov¬ 
ered the walls, and here and there hung choice paint¬ 
ings, while in the floor mosaics shadowed forth allegories 
of life. - Up in the towers were placed great silver bells 
which swung of themselves and made a sweet and noble 
music. In brief, all that imagination could dream and 
art express, all that might satisfy the senses and gratify 
the craving for beauty, was here. And in this palace 
the soul lived alone. 

My soul would live alone unto herself 
In her high palace there. 

In the Palace of Art the soul dwelt apart, sequestered 
and secluded, holding no intercourse with the crude and 
plebeian things of the earth. 

.... let the world have peace or wars, 

’Tis one to me. 

O God-like isolation which art mine, 

I can but count thee perfect gain, 

What time I watch the darkening droves of swine 
That range on yonder plain. 



The Teaching of English 


23 


—the “darkening droves of swine” being the men and 
women dwelling in the plains below the palace. 

I care not what the sects may brawl, 

I sit as God holding no form of creed, 

But contemplate them all. 

Aloft above the petty affairs of life, cloistered and 
serene, the soul existed alone, looking down in scorn upon 
the work and play, the hopes and joys, the fears and 
struggles of human existence, with interest only in the 
beauties of art and the truths of abstract philosophy. 
“It is all so trivial and sordid,” I can hear her say; “all 
so mean and menial and materialistic, these problems of 
how to make a living, how to get food and shelter, how 
to build roads and till fields and tend cattle. ” 

Full oft the riddle of the painful earth 
Flash’d thro’ her as she sat alone, 

Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth, 

And intellectual throne. 

“As she sat alone”—that was the sole reason for 
the construction of the Palace of Art: that the soul 
might be relieved of the vexations and troubles of humble 
humanity and free to devote her mind to beauty and 
pure intellectual pursuits. 

And so she throve and prosper’d; so three years 
She prosper'd. 

The Palace of Pedagogy. And while for three years 
she prospers, let me describe another palace, the Palace 
of Pedagogy. Builded by poets and philosophers, this 
palace like the other, set upon a hill, apart from the 
homes and haunts of men; dedicated to the service of 
beauty and high aesthetic and intellectual accomplish¬ 
ments; looking down in fastidious scorn upon the farms 

3 



24 


The New Democracy in 


and villages, the shops and stores, where labor and live 
the men and women of the valley—there stands the 
Palace of Pedagogy. 

The lords and ladies who dwell in this Palace base 
their philosophy upon a few tenets and dogmas. These 
are the most fundamental: that there is but one success, 
one happiness, one culture, one great good, one education 
— that attained by those who dwell in the Palace; that 
this is to be attained only by the hardening of the will, 
the disciplining of the mind, and the training of the 
spirit to discern beauty and to learn a remote and abstract 
philosophy; that none except those studies and activities 
which are far removed from the ordinary, transitory 
affairs of life are worthy of the attention of a dweller in 
the Palace; that they who live in the Palace, though by 
nature and special training fitted to be the teachers and 
leaders of all the children of men, should deal with none 
but those who are destined for the Palace—should train 
artists but not artisans, poets but not advertising writers, 
portrait painters but not photographers, architects but 
not carpenters, sculptors but not stone masons; should 
teach the fine arts but not the useful arts; should prepare 
for the painful professions but not for the gainful trades. 
There must be no condescension, no lowering of pure and 
lofty standards to a mundane plane, no truckling to the 
wishes of the groundlings. 

“If you desire to be educated,” they say, “you must 
come up to us, we shall not come down to you. ” “Exten¬ 
sion work?” That is cheap and shoddy. “Household 
economics and manual training?” They are “easy” and 
‘ ‘ common. ” “ Popularizing knowledge ? ’ ’ That is undig¬ 
nified and unprofessional. It is better to learn how 



The Teaching of English 


25 


Caesar built his wooden bridge in Gaul than to learn how 
to build a concrete bridge in America. The inmates of the 
Palace of Pedagogy stand for the “humanities,” which 
seems sometimes to mean that which humanity does not 
directly and immediately need; they contend for a “liberal 
education,” though they themselves are illiberal in the 
extreme toward all studies except a narrow group of 
studies, a narrow group which nevertheless they call 
broadening. 

The “English Wing” in the Palace. But I intend to 
speak more explicitly concerning those who occupy a cer¬ 
tain section of the Palace of Pedagogy, that which may 
be called the “English Wing” of the Palace. Despite 
all attempts to democratize the teaching of English, to 
fit it into the uses and usages of life, to render it definitely 
valuable to each individual, English still remains too 
“high-brow,” too remote from the urgent desires and 
pressing needs of common life, too vague and visionary. 
Teachers of English think too much of preparation for 
life and too little of participation in life, too much of 
discipline and too little of deeds, too much of exercises 
and too little of activities, too much of books and bookish 
enjoyments and too little of life and living employments. 

The source of most of the false doctrine and mischievous 
method in English teaching is here: many English teachers 
are residents of the Palace of Pedagogy. They conceive 
of but one desirable kind of life, their kind; of but 
one desirable type of education, their type. Enthroned 
high above the practical affairs of the world, they have 
not a vision of or sympathy with those who live in the 
plains and valleys. Being ignorant of life, they ignore 
life. 



26 


The New Democracy in 


“You wish to speak and write? Very well; train your¬ 
self through story writing, the making of essays, orations, 
descriptions. ” 

“But I wish to learn how to converse, to discuss, 
to write letters, to use language in conducting the business 
and social affairs of my life. ” 

“Nay; there is but one type of expression that merits 
attention, the literary type; you must prepare yourself 
for conversation by writing expositions.” 

“ I wish to learn to read. ” 

“Very well; here are Shakespeare and Milton, Words¬ 
worth and George Eliot and Henry James.” 

“ But I wish to learn to read newspapers and magazines 
and to know what is the best in modern fiction and 
poetry.” 

“Nay; there is but one type of reading, the ‘classic’ 
type. It may be that through temperament and expe¬ 
rience you are not able to derive pleasure or profit from 
the reading of these masterpieces; nevertheless this is all 
that is read in the Palace of Pedagogy, therefore all that 
is worth reading. ” 

It is this detachment, this remoteness from life, this 
obliviousness to the daily and hourly desires and demands 
of life, this abstraction in the purely rhetorical and 
aesthetic aspects of English—it is this that holds back 
English teachers from their richest service and finest 
enjoyment. 

Value of English for life. I should not be a teacher of 
English, I think, if I did not believe that English, the 
right kind of English, has a tremendous value for life. 
And I should not be a critic of the teaching of English if 
I did not believe that the English which has been taught 
and is being taught in most places is not the right kind 



The Teaching of English 


27 


because it fails so frequently to have a value for life* 
Life is complex, not simple; life is multiform, not uniform; 
heterogeneous, not homogeneous. And English has been 
taught as if all boys and girls were to be dwellers in the 
Palace of Pedagogy, concerned with literary art, whereas 
to the end of time ninety-nine per cent of the boys and 
girls will be dwellers in the valleys and plains below the 
Palace, workers in the farms and shops and offices and 
kitchens, and concerned only with the lighter forms of 
reading and the more practical phases of speaking and 
writing. 

Let me be specific, for I have no desire to rest my 
indictment on loose, unsubstantial charges and denuncia¬ 
tions. What is the English which the average boy and 
girl, the dweller on the plains, should be taught? As I 
try to answer this, bear in mind that what I shall now 
say applies only to elementary and high-school English. 
Later on I shall have something to say of college English. 

Fundamental English needs. The fundamental English 
needs of those children who are to remain in the valley 
dominated by the Palace of Pedagogy are not many— 
though for that very reason they are urgent. 

Rapid silent reading needed by all children. First, 
children need to be taught to get the thought rapidly, 
easily, and accurately from subject matter that is 
within their scope, whether it be informational or liter¬ 
ary. This does not mean that they are to be taught to 
read aloud artistically — far from it. We must come to 
see, we must have it seared into our minds, that only the 
few, the literary few, the future dwellers in the Palace, 
can be trained to read literature, especially poetry, aloud, 
with any degree of effectiveness. Oh, the years we waste 
in the elementary and high school trying to make accom- 



28 


The New Democracy in 


plished oral readers of those who never, by any means 
whatsoever, can be trained to read aloud anything but 
plain reading matter from a book or newspaper! The 
old definition, “Reading is getting and giving the 
thought from the printed page,” has done infinite harm. 
Reading, the common, practical reading of life, does not 
include nor imply giving the thought, either in oral read¬ 
ing or in dramatization or even in reproduction. If we 
could be persuaded to give up this futile business and 
devote the time we should save to training children in 
getting the thought quickly and fluently, we could 
hope to accomplish this, the first duty of the English 
teacher. 

Knowledge and appreciation of literature. Second, 
the children of the valleys and plains should be brought 
to care for good literature and to know what is good 
literature. Our present system fails pitifully in this 
respect. I contend that it fails largely because the 
dwellers in the Palace of Pedagogy, the high priests of 
literature, attempt to bring up the children on a narrow 
diet of classics. It sounds perverse, but I must say it: 
their aims are too high. Only those who are destined to 
dwell in the Palace can breathe the atmosphere of the 
supreme classic literature. And yet most of the required 
reading in grades and high school is of the classic type, 
far beyond the taste and appreciation of boys and girls. 
Perhaps, if they were wisely guided, they might in their 
maturity come to enjoy these masterpieces—for master¬ 
pieces they are; but it is folly to expect puny youngsters 
to scale the heights of art and wisdom of Milton and 
Shelley and Browning, of Thackeray and Hardy and 
Hawthorne. 



The Teaching of English 


29 


Yet there are some of the classics which, by virtue of 
the themes and content and the personality of the authors, 
belong by right to all children. Shakespeare is theirs, 
and Scott is theirs, and Cooper and Mark Twain are 
theirs, and Dickens in part and Tennyson in part, and 
scores of scattered selections, prose and poetry, old and 
modern. All children should arrive at a loving apprecia¬ 
tion of this classic literature, because it deals with those 
aspects of life, those ideas and feelings, those events and 
personages, which are of paramount interest to them. 
I say all children should love such classic literature. 
That they do not is because of our bungling method of 
presenting it. 

Errors in presenting literature, a) Analysis. Our 

favorite blunder is presenting this literature as fine art, to 
be studied and analyzed as specimens of art, instead of as 
documents of life, romantic or realistic, to be observed 
and reflected upon as fragments of existence. Are we 
reading a sonnet? Instead of finding and admiring the 
fundamental ideas, the new points of view, the truths in 
the poem, and allowing ourselves to be stirred by the 
emotion, we must split up the fourteen lines carefully 
into octave and sestet, we must examine the architec¬ 
tonics, must diagram the rime scheme to see whether it 
be Italian or Shakespearean—all of which is of interest 
largely to sonneteers, to students of literary craftsman¬ 
ship, to those who will become inmates of the Palace 
on the hill. Are we taking up a drama of Shakespeare's? 
Instead of reading rapidly through the play, following 
the story, and comparing it with life as the children have 
observed life, getting acquainted with the characters 
and watching them act and react upon circumstances 



30 


The New Democracy in 


and upon one another, noting passages of wisdom and 
eloquence with which the pages of Shakespeare are so 
generously strewn; instead of treating the play as a cross- 
section of human existence, we must study the sources of 
the plot and conjecture why the author modified them, we 
must learn the architecture of the play, the exposition, 
rising action, and so forth, we must admire the play¬ 
wright’s skill in character grouping, we must try to deter¬ 
mine why characters use prose in one place and blank 
verse in another, we must count the number of rimes and 
run-on lines to enable us to tell in just what year this 
play was written—all matters of interest to the tech¬ 
nician, to the student of the art of stagecraft, to the 
dwellers in the Palace, but of no concern to the inhabit¬ 
ants of the plains. 

Teachers of English need not try to ignore the fact 
that the average pupil, that is to say, the unliterary 
boy and girl, does not care for and will not profit from 
the discussions, the dissertations, the desiccations of liter¬ 
ature, the fine points and the nice problems of literary 
style, the never-ending distinctions between the tweedle- 
dums and the tweedledees of the writer’s art. Having 
selected that literature which because of its content and 
its style is of the kind which will come home to the hearts 
of children and young people, we must regard that litera¬ 
ture as areas of life rather than as specimens for literary 
analysis, we must drive straight to the essential qualities, 
the main issues, the vital matters of thought and feeling, 
of story, character, and situation—this to the end that 
we may enrich and enlarge the lives of those who are to 
run the shops and stores, to manage the offices and 
homes in the valley, not that we may coach initiates 



The Teaching of English 


31 


for the Palace of Pedagogy. This does not mean, of 
course, that we are to read everything at the same rate 
of speed. Whenever an important thought, a lofty 
truth, a subtle point, is couched in involved language, 
whenever any difficulty stands between the reader and 
some vital idea in the reading, naturally we must slow 
down our pace. But what is so exasperating is to see a 
teacher eternally reining the class in, keeping the boys 
and girls for three weeks on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 
when it is obvious that they could exhaust its possibilities 
in three days, or spending a month on Julius Caesar when 
a third of that time is all-sufficient. Does it not strike 
you as queer—to put it mildly—that, though in two 
hours we can appreciate and understand Julius Caesar as 
we see it played, we must devote weeks to studying the 
play in class? 

h) The history of literature. Another of the decrees 
handed down from the Palace of Pedagogy and imposed 
upon the children of the plains is that all must study, 
long and unflaggingly, the history and development of 
literature and the biographies of authors. Even for 
the boys and girls who are preparing themselves for occu¬ 
pancy of the Palace of Pedagogy this is of question¬ 
able value, since usually they are forced to take up the 
study of authors and the history of literature before 
they have done sufficient reading of the literature itself. 
As for the children of the plains, it is time lost and energy 
wasted. One needs no further proof of this than the 
fact, obvious to all, that children who have been thor¬ 
oughly drilled — and grilled—in the history of liter¬ 
ature remember but the tiniest fractions of what they 
have studied, and usually remember these fractions 




32 


The New Democracy in 


wrong. They forget the characteristics of the different 
periods, they forget the chronological sequence, they for¬ 
get the epochs to which the authors belong, they forget 
the analyses of books and styles, they forget the events 
in the existence of authors—if, indeed, the meditative 
lives of authors can be said to have events. It is amazing 
—and amusing—to see the blunders that graduates of 
high school and even of college make in the details of 
literary history a few short months after they have flung 
away their textbooks. The knowledge that is acquired 
with such drudgery is so unrelated to the affairs of the 
world that it cannot be used. And how shall knowledge 
that is not used be useful? 

It is not as if the study of the history of literature and 
the biographies of writers were generally interesting. The 
life of Daniel Boone is more generally interesting and 
much more inspiring to young people than the life of 
Joseph Addison; the lives of Stanley and Peary, of Nel¬ 
son and Napoleon, of Edison and Burbank, of Florence 
Nightingale and Father Damien, than the lives of Milton 
and Wordsworth, of Keats and Shelley, of Irving and Poe. 
What of value is there to any but the literary gentry in 
the learning of the three periods of Chaucer’s life, of the 
long development of drama which culminated in Shake¬ 
speare, of the difference between Pope and Dry den, of the 
manner in which Doctor Johnson ruled his petty senate, 
of the interminable quarrels of Cooper, of the length of 
time Hawthorne lived in Salem? Why are the lives of 
authors more wqrthy of compulsory study by all pupils, 
regardless of their inherent interests, than the lives of 
painters, of musicians, of mathematicians, scientists, or 
captains of industry? Why? Merely because those 




The Teaching of English 


33 


who dwell in the Palace of Pedagogy, being themselves 
interested in the lives of authors, have agreed that this 
knowledge is indispensable to culture, to a liberal edu¬ 
cation, and, holding positions of authority, they have 
decreed that it shall become a part of the curriculum. 

The better method. I have said that the second duty 
resting upon teachers of English (the second clause of 
the contract we have made with the public) is to indoc¬ 
trinate children with a love of good books and to train 
them to a degree of discrimination in books. We shall 
not do this by a line-by-line analysis of classics, by a 
precept-upon-precept study of the laws and principles 
of art, by a here-a-little-and-there-a-little survey of the 
history of literature and the careers of literary personages. 
This is what we should not do. What is it we should do ? 

The field of literature. I propose that we search out 
all the desirable literature, all the good books which, by 
virtue of their subject matter and their style, are suitable 
and profitable to children and young people; that we 
read these books with them as rapidly as an intelligent 
appreciation of the most important qualities and most 
striking features of each specimen of the literature permits 
and suggests; that we read primarily for life, not for art; 
that we read scores and hundreds of books instead of a 
meager and miserly few; that each child be allowed to 
read, according to his interests, from a generous list; 
that our reading comprise the best of modern newspapers, 
magazines, fiction, and poetry; that a good book be 
appraised and admired as a good book, no matter when 
or by whom it was written; that we build up principles of 
criticism and canons of art surely and gradually, through 
the "children’s reading and observation, and that we place 



34 


The New Democracy in 


a premium upon that quality which is most desirable in 
a critic: sincerity, integrity; that as interest manifests 
itself, we read something of the lives of authors we like 
and obtain a few glimpses of the backgrounds of modem 
literature. I propose that we break down the traditions 
which fence us in to pasture upon a few books—and those 
better suited to adults—and that we range freely over all 
the good, wholesome reading available for young people. 

Books are of several grades of merit. Dwellers in 
the Palace of Pedagogy would have us believe that there 
are but two kinds of books: the books which they call 
“classic” and the books which, if they were not afraid 
of slang, they might call “classy.” As a matter of fact, 
one can distinguish in the field of fiction at least six 
grades of books: first, the supreme classics; second, the 
good, serious, carefully written books, of sincere purpose 
and sound art but not great enough to rank among the 
classics, such books as Mr. Britling Sees It Through, 
The Harbor, The Crisis, A Certain Rich Man; third, the 
light, ephemeral books, worth reading once, and once in 
a while for entertainment, books of the romantic sort, 
such as those of Zane Grey and Rex Beach; fourth, the 
sentimental, insincere, melodramatic books of Harold 
Bell Wright and Ethel Dell; fifth, and slightly below these, 
the mawkish, inane love stories and crime stories of 
Bertha M. Clay and Nick Carter; sixth, the depraved and 
depraving sex stories, such as those of Elinor Glyn and, 
at his worst, Robert W. Chambers. There are at least 
these six classifications of novels, with gradations between. 
One can find as many groups of magazines, from the 
Atlantic down to Snappy Stories; and in the poetry and 
drama of today there are three or four distinct levels. 



The Teaching of English 


35 


Now if the dwellers in the Palace of Pedagogy will have 
dealings only with the reading material of the first class, 
how shall immature boys and girls learn how to discrimi¬ 
nate, to choose the best and shun the worst among the 
other classes ? And it is the literature of the other classes, 
the recent books and magazines, that crowd upon our 
attention everywhere. There appear each year scores of 
books and a liberal dozen of magazines which are well 
worth anybody’s leisure time—light reading, perhaps, 
but thoroughly good, thoroughly healthful and salutary. 
But — and here’s the pity of it—these are buried out 
of sight beneath the hundreds of inferior books. I 
would start with the better of the light modern books, 
and, as the child grows older and his taste becomes finer 
and more dependable, I would lead him on to the place 
where, of his own free will and accord, he will select the 
higher and sounder reading and reject the shoddy and 
the sentimental. As long as we confine ourselves to 
the classics and ignore all other reading, so long will boys 
and girls give the classics up and give themselves up to 
random, reckless perusal of whatever chances to make the 
most urgent and direct appeal. Perhaps in the library 
of the Palace of Pedagogy is to be found no literature but 
the classic; but in the bookstores on the plains, below the 
fine and the trashy, the sincere and the flashy', occupy 
the same shelves and sell at the same price, and there 
is no one, least of all the salesman, who knows or cares 
what is genuine. It is for this state of affairs that we 
must educate our children. Only the one literary child 
will cleave immediately and forever to the classics; the 
ninety and nine* when released from the required reading 
of the schools, either quit reading altogether or revert to 



36 


The New Democracy in 


the haphazard reading of whatever tickles their fancy. 
Do you doubt that? Talk with high-school graduates, 
with college graduates, about their reading and see how 
untrained and untutored they are in modern literary 
questions. No, we shall never bring the average boy and 
girl to care for books or to know what books to care for 
until we have given up our notions about the sanctity 
of the classics and the inanity of books below the classics. 

I have written at length and with fervor upon this 
topic because I feel it is of great importance. But I must 
hasten on. 

Use of English in everyday life. The third duty 
devolving upon teachers of English, if they are to equip 
children for life and not for art, for the everyday business 
of existence and not for the elegance and “culture” of the 
Palace of Pedagogy, is to train the children in the use of 
their mother tongue in the common language forms and 
activities. Even the residents of the Palace engage 
more freely in talking than in writing; and in the valleys 
and plains almost all work and play is carried on through 
oral language intercourse. 

Voice training. Obviously, our first duty is this: to 
train boys and girls to talk fluently, effectively, success¬ 
fully. This includes enlargement and enrichment of 
their speaking vocabulary (not their reading or their 
writing vocabulary), training in pronunciation and 
enunciation, in voice production and control, in the 
forms and the conventions of social speech. We have 
spelling classes in the grades, and that is commendable; 
but correct spelling is not nearly so important as clear, 
distinct articulation. Nor can we evade our responsibility 
by the assertion that children will learn to articulate 



The Teaching of English 


37 


anyhow without our training, for the plain fact is that 
they do not learn. How many muffled, piping, throaty, 
nasal voices we hear! How lazy and slack our vocal 
muscles grow! We do not have sufficient vocal energy 
to utter “probably” or “suspect” or “geography,” we 
slur the vowels in unaccented syllables, we may mind 
our p's and q' s, but we drop our g's and ignore our r’s. 
I am not making a plea for rich, cultivated, musical 
voices, however warmly I admire them. I am speaking 
of voices that are adequate for the ordinary business and 
social demands—voices that will carry ideas, not mere 
gibberish, over the telephone; voices that can make 
themselves heard above the hum of factory wheels or the 
buzz of a roomful of conversation; voices which, when 
lifted in discussion in club, lodge, grange, or labor union, 
will be audible and intelligible to all in the group. The 
elementary and high school might well take a part of the 
time now given over to the mechanics of writing and use 
it for training in the mechanics of speech. 

Vocabulary building. And the children of the plains 
need more practical and constructive work in vocabulary 
building. We go about this in the wrong way. We 
assume that children enlarge and enrich their speaking 
vocabulary through reading and the study of literary 
diction. No doubt those who live in the Palace of Peda¬ 
gogy and those who, because of their special temperament 
and upbringing, are bound for the Palace do carry a great 
many words over from their reading to their speaking. 
But the vast majority of the boys and girls and of men and 
women construct their vocabulary almost entirely out of 
the words which they hear. The words we speak are 
the words we hear spoken; few of us, and none except 



38 


The New Democracy in 


those of the pronouncedly literary type, get any substan¬ 
tial addition to their stock of words through reading. 
It is therefore folly to attempt to build up a vocabu¬ 
lary by studying words found in books. Constructive 
vocabulary work is based upon three principles: First, 
begin with ideas which the children have, not with words 
which you want them to acquire; then lead them to dis¬ 
cover and appropriate the word which names the idea they 
have. Second, through all the oral work of the school, 
train the children to employ the specific instead of the 
general word, the concrete instead of the abstract word, 
the sheathe-tight word which reveals the precise shade of 
meaning instead of the Mother Hubbard word which 
covers everything and reveals nothing. And third, 
train them to add to their vocabulary the picturesque, 
rich-flavored, emotion-laden words of the vernacular. 

Idiomatic speech. The language of literature contains 
no diction superior in expressiveness and forcefulness to the 
best examples of animated, idiomatic speech. The best 
examples, mark you. I know how tame and dull, how 
anaemic and lethargic, how devoid of grip and vigor, is 
the language in which we usually try to express our 
thoughts and feelings. This is because we are either 
afraid or ashamed of the natural, racy, humorous, homely 
language of life, because we have been repressed and 
restrained by the regulations of literary correctness and 
elegance, because the pedagogs from the Palace have 
forced us to use the proper, sedate, cultivated language 
or the bookish, stilted, pedantic language with which they 
talk—or “converse,” I should say. Scores, hundreds 
of words full of force and color and warmth are heard by 
the children on the streets and playgrounds, in the stores 


The Teaching of English 


39 


and homes adjacent to the schoolhouse, but woe be to 
that sacrilegious urchin who dares utter them within the 
cloistered domain ruled over by the teacher. 

Slang. I should like to express myself fully on the 
subject of slang, of colloquial and provincial and idiomatic 
English, for I am convinced we have the wrong slant on 
this question. Because we have held up literary, or 
rather, bookish, language as the model for everyday inter¬ 
course, and because, naturally and properly, slang and 
colloquial diction are barred from literary and bookish 
language, we have jumped to the conclusion that slang and 
colloquial speech are linguistic crimes, always to be con¬ 
demned and punished. The pedagogs in the Palace assert 
that slang is coarse and vulgar. Some slang is coarse and 
vulgar, and many words in thoroughly approved usage, 
not slang at all, are coarse and vulgar; naturally one 
should avoid all such words, whether slang or not. But 
many words which we stigmatize as coarse are, in reality, 
strong, vigorous, direct, vulgar. “Beat it,” “that’s the 
limit,” “I’m on to you,” “punk,” “swell,” “swat,” 
“scoot,” are brusque, terse, forceful modes of expression; 
they are, to my way of thinking, better conversational 
English than their more staid and dignified literary 
synonyms. * ‘ Cut it out ’ ’ is more graphic than ‘ ‘ eliminate 
it,” “butt in” is more expressive than “intrude,” “spill 
the beans” is more picturesque than “injure the cause.” 

The pedagogs inform us also that “slang impoverishes 
the language.” Why, of course, if a girl calls everything 
“swell” and a boy terms everything “rotten,” neglecting 
the synonyms that express the finer shades of meaning, 
they do impoverish their language, they make it poverty- 
stricken indeed. But this tendency is not peculiar to 


4 



40 


The New Democracy in 


slang; many persons weaken their language through 
overworking certain words which are in well-established 
usage. We can, and many of us do, overwork “nice” 
and “fine.” I met recently an intelligent woman who 
was “impoverishing her language” by calling everything 
“sweet.” Almost everyone I know overworks the word 
“thing,” employing it as synonymous with “idea,” 
“thought,” “plan,” “point,” “cause,” “circumstance,” 
“situation,” instead of reserving it to designate a material 
concrete object. This is “impoverishing the language”: 
to use frequently a broad, general, inexact word when we 
should use a narrow, specific, precise word, whether that 
general word is a waif from the music hall and the back 
alley or a highly respected child of Noah Webster’s own 
lineage. 

And in this connection we need to remember that 
slang has enlarged and enriched and strengthened our 
language, that thousands of words and phrases now 
in established use, rendering stout and gallant service in 
expression, have come into English through the door of 
slang. In fact, the refreshing and renewing springs 
of language are, first, creative literature and, second, 
colloquial speech. Our patrician language would find 
its blood running thin and its vital forces ebbing low, if 
it did not continually bring into the family the strong, 
crude offsprings of plebeian slang. 

But of course I realize that a slang phrase often 
becomes so popular that it displaces many useful words. 
“I’ll say so,” “You said it,” “What do you know about 
that?” wear us out with their mere reiteration. For¬ 
tunately they wear themselves out and disappear like 
popular songs and novels—without leaving any trace 



The Teaching of English 


41 


upon the language. The fact of the matter is, many 
young people bandy about current slang phrases just to 
be in style, to be up to the minute, precisely as they wear 
the latest monstrosities in clothes. Some of our youthful 
friends wear nothing but the extremely and strangely 
modern in clothes and approve and use nothing but the 
very latest Parisian models in slang. Of course, that 
kind of slang and that kind of dressing are silly; but still I 
doubt whether we would seriously consider doing away 
with slang — or clothes—because some young people show 
no discretion in their use. Some one—doubtless some 
wiseacre from the Palace—has suggested that slang be 
not used by anyone under forty years of age. That 
would solve it. In the same way we could remove all 
the risks from dancing, automobiling, bathing, even from 
courting and marrying. 

No, seriously, we must teach children to use common 
sense and discretion in slang as in other arts and activities. 
We should regard slang as we regard other language 
phenomena. Some slang is cheap and coarse, some slang 
is rich and vivid; some slang is inane and pointless, some 
slang is apt and striking; and no slang, however novel and 
picturesque, should be permitted to become the dominant 
quality in our speech. I would not warn against all 
slang—I would warn against undesirable and excessive 
slang. I would not discriminate against slang; I would 
discriminate among slang expressions. 

“But slang is not proper,” say those who speak the 
refined language of the Palace of Pedagogy. Not proper? 
“Proper” means “appropriate.” Of course, slang is not 
proper, because not appropriate, in a sermon or an oration, 
in a serious essay or a business letter. But in intimate, 



42 


The New Democracy in 


familiar, happy-go-lucky talk, slang is not only proper 
but highly commendable and desirable. Do not let us 
be overawed and browbeaten by those who, speaking 
the literary dialect of the Palace of Pedagogy, regard 
that as the only authorized language. Doubtless their 
dialect is good, perhaps it is better than that spoken on 
the plains; but those who live on the plains speak and 
will speak a dialect more to their liking and more like 
them. Let the pedagogs, instead of tabooing all slang 
and colloquial language, condescend to descend and 
help us to search out what is the most desirable, the most 
expressive, and the most effective slang, and assist 
us to establish that. 

The blunt truth is that even yet, despite the progress 
we have made in the teaching of English, most English 
teachers still think in terms of writing instead of in terms 
of talking. In nearly all schools much more attention is 
paid to written than to spoken language. Naturally, 
therefore, we place before children ideals and specimens 
of written discourse, and deceive them and ourselves 
into believing that formal written language is the natural 
and normal and customary language. 

Literary bias in English teaching. This accounts for 
the literary trend and bias in our teaching of the English 
language. Instead of taking snatches of lively, animated 
talk as models and endeavoring to teach children the 
principles and secrets of good talk and to train them in 
the practice, we set before them specimens of the classics 
and urge them to imitate these. Our rhetoric texts are 
full of discussions of literary language, literary style, 
literary forms. If it is a question of effective use of 
words, the Palace pedagogs resort invariably to literature 




The Teaching of English 


43 


for models. Are there no examples of good diction in 
the conversations and discussions in which we take part, 
in advertisements in newspapers and magazines? If it 
is a question of good social letters, we place before the 
pupils some of the letters of Phillips Brooks or Charles 
Dickens—charming letters, to be sure, but literary 
letters. If it is a question of story-telling, we teach the 
literary method of telling the story, with the climax last, 
instead of the newspaper method, with the chief point 
in the first paragraph. We think of all language forms 
and activities as literary forms and activities, whereas 
literature is but one of the many molds into which language 
pours itself. Shall we say that the only desirable and 
legitimate manner of using colors is in portrait painting, 
or that the only permissible manner of employing tones 
is in singing? Let us leave the literary artists to their 
trade, our only natural relation to them being that of 
readers and admirers, and let us set to work to learn 
the practical arts of language expression needed for the 
everyday business of living. 

Types of language activity. The older rhetoric books 
presented exhaustive analyses of what they termed the 
four forms of discourse. You remember them: narration, 
description, exposition, and argumentation, always in that 
definite order. And you remember you got the impression 
that these were the only possible forms of discourse; it 
was all predetermined, it was natural law, inevitable > 
unchanging, like the four seasons of the year; there could 
not, by any conceivable accident, be a fifth. And then 
some one, perhaps a deserter from the Palace of Pedagogy, 
discovered a fifth form, the letter; and after a time it 
began to find a place in the newer rhetoric books. But, 



44 


The New Democracy in 


we were assured by the pedagogs on the height, this was 
not a “pure” form of discourse; it was “mixed”—which 
in some manner subtly discredited it. Perhaps the lords 
in the Palace would not have vouchsafed it even this 
much courtesy if they had not reflected that literary 
personages write letters, some of which could be used as 
models. But this is as far as we have gone. These, we 
are assured, are the five forms of prose discourse, including 
this troublesome, mongrel form, the letter. 

Now I am willing to concede that, from the standpoint 
of literary art, these are the forms of discourse. But 
here is the crux of the whole problem: the teaching of 
English—by which is meant the teaching of the English 
language—is not primarily or even largely a matter of 
teaching literary art. It is a matter of teaching those 
forms or types of language activity which are most used 
and therefore most useful in life, in the everyday, work¬ 
aday experiences and circumstances of life. 

Five forms of discourse? There are at least eight. 
I must name them and discuss them briefly, in order to 
clarify my position. 

Conversation. Conversation is far and away the 
most important form of discourse, or, to use a better 
term, type of language activity. There are laws and 
principles of conversation quite as fixed, quite as firmly 
based, as the laws and principles of exposition or argu¬ 
ment, and, to the dweller in the plains, infinitely more 
valuable. These must be learned and followed by him— 
or should I say “her”?—who would become a good 
conversationalist. But they are not learned and fol¬ 
lowed; to assure ourselves of that we need only to look 
around us, or rather to listen around us. It is fatuous 



The Teaching of English 


45 


folly to contend that, since we must all talk, we shall 
learn to talk by sheer dint of talking. We learn to do, 
at least we learn economically to do, not by mere doing, 
but by thoughtful, progressive, guided doing. The most 
natural, the most convenient, and the most efficient 
way of teaching the laws and qualities of good conversa¬ 
tion and of training in the art of conversation is by making 
conversation an integral part, indeed the central part, of 
the work in English. And it is equal folly to contend 
that conversation cannot be taught, that it is a natural 
talent, that talkers are born, not made. No matter how 
richly gifted or how poor one may be in this regard, he 
will learn with less waste and more haste by studying 
the principles of the art and practicing under guidance, 
or, better yet, by practicing under guidance until he is 
led to discover the principles of the art. This type of 
language activity may not be so valuable to those who 
dwell in the Palace of Pedagogy; but it is invaluable to 
those who, in the plains below, carry on and carry through 
much of the work and play of life by means of talk, and 
who should therefore learn how to talk efficiently and 
effectively. 

Discussion. Discussion is one of the necessary tools of 
a democratic society. Through discussion we make deci¬ 
sions, render judgments, work out plans and campaigns, 
pass laws, solve problems. A Boy Scouts company 
preparing for an outing, a group of bankers investi¬ 
gating a business proposition, a committee of teachers 
trying to find ways and means of increasing salaries, a 
labor union deciding whether it shall declare a strike, 
a ladies’ aid society planning how to raise money, or a 
political party planning a campaign — all these employ 



46 


The New Democracy in 


discussion as the means of clarifying opinion, balancing 
arguments, influencing judgments, planning the work and 
working the plan. How very important that discussion 
be taught and taught well! And yet it has not been 
taught; for-the most part no effort has been made to teach 
it in school or elsewhere. It can be taught, and it will be 
taught, as soon as we see clearly that preparation for the 
vocation of living in a democracy involves preparation 
for that form of language intercourse most essential in 
the solution of the problems of a democracy, as soon as 
we tear loose from the dominating influence of that 
domineering hierarchy in the Palace who think that 
literature and literary technicalities are more important 
than life and life’s realities. 

Explanation. Not exposition, be it noted, though of 
course the two words are synonymous. “Exposition” 
suggests the essay, the article, the textbook, the sermon, 
the address, the lecture, the ambitious and erudite and 
somewhat literary type of discourse. We use explanation 
when we give some one instructions on how to go from 
one place to another, how to serve a “cut” ball in tennis, 
how to discard in whist, how to make a birdhouse or a 
bird’s-nest pudding. We use explanation when we show 
or tell some one how to take a kodak picture, how to 
mark a ballot in voting, how to drive an automobile. 
We use explanation when we tell about a book we have 
read or a plan we have made, when we pass on to others 
ideas and information, from whatever source they have 
come. “Explanation” implies that some one has a bit 
of knowledge or experience which some one else wishes 
to share. It implies a direct contact between speaker 
and hearers and a genuine social desire to tell and teach 



The Teaching of English 


47 


on the one hand and to hear and learn on the other. It 
is usually brief and informal, and it is often accompanied 
by chart or diagram or demonstration. 

Every day of their lives the boys and girls, the men 
and women, on the plains employ explanation in their 
dealings with one another. Nearly always they fail to 
use it skillfully. How should it be otherwise? They 
have never been taught. And it is a difficult and com¬ 
plicated type of language activity. The dwellers in the 
Palace of Pedagogy themselves are often clumsy and 
awkward, as witness their attempts to make clear to the 
average mind a truth in science, history, and art. But 
they at least can learn, they can discover and set forth 
the fundamental laws and principles of explanation, and 
they can elevate explanation to its rightful place as one 
of the democratic forms of discourse. But first they 
must see clearly that exposition, with its rigid and frigid 
rules, its pedantry, its formality, its impersonality, and 
its literary and bookish cast, that exposition, however 
highly honored in the Palace of Pedagogy, must be 
renounced for explanation, with its flexibility and infor¬ 
mality, its true social motive, its practical and specific 
nature, and its objective result. The only test of expla¬ 
nation is, Does it explain, explain briefly, skillfully, 
economically, and thoroughly, anything, no matter how 
lowly and humble, which one person knows and which 
others do not know but wish to know? 

Informal argument. For the solemn treaties on argu¬ 
mentation compiled in the library of the Palace of Peda¬ 
gogy we should substitute useful directions for the 
carrying on of informal argument. The day of the 
studied, set debate has almost closed; for that matter, 



48 


The New Democracy in 


it never dawned upon the average dweller in the plain. 
Literary societies and debating clubs have become almost 
extinct in our schools; forensic contests of the Lincoln- 
Douglas type are rarely staged. The kind of arguments 
that most people, at least most of those who live in the 
plains, engage in, is the free, unfixed, informal argument 
arising from conversation and discussion. We have no 
selected debaters, no remote and impersonal question, no 
appointed judges, and no decision except that recorded in 
the minds and rendered subsequently through the beliefs 
and actions of those who hear and weigh the evidence. 

A group of persons is led through discussion into a 
topic upon which there is a difference of opinion. Perhaps 
it is a question of what kind of class pin to buy, or which 
of the local newspapers is best, or where to go for a class 
picnic, or who is to blame for an automobile accident, or 
what kind of electric wiring to use in a building. Con¬ 
sider now what are some of the requisites for a satisfactory 
argument. There must be a leader, either the naturally 
dominating personality of the group or the president of 
the class or club or organization. This leader must be 
unbiased and fair-minded; he must be strong enough to 
keep the argument moving toward a conclusion, yet 
tactful enough to subordinate himself; and he must be 
desirous that the truth prevail or the expedient plan be 
adopted. Each individual in the group must be led to 
express himself forcefully and frankly, yet temperately 
and courteously, advancing the arguments on his side 
and repelling the arguments on the other side. There 
must be no wrangling, no quarreling, no resorting to 
mere assertion and denial, in the “’tis-’tain’t” manner 
of children. Everyone must be taught to recognize valid 



The Teaching of English 


49 


evidence and sound reasoning and be trained not to 
rely upon merely personal opinion. No one must be 
permitted to bully his opponents or to filch more than 
his fair quota of time. There must be no unmannerly 
interruptions. All must be taught to marshal their 
arguments logically and almost on the spur of the moment, 
and to avoid repetitions, arguments in a circle, and diver¬ 
sions from the subject at issue. The points on both 
sides of the question must be adduced, misunderstand¬ 
ings cleared up, the facts revealed. And out of this 
must come knowledge, action and reaction, conviction, 
judgment, decision, and, whenever feasible, action— 
concerted action—those in the minority acquiescing in the 
will of the majority until such time as they can change it. 

“What a pretty theory,” says some one. “But do 
you ever find such ideal informal arguments in life?” 
Of course not. We find disputation, bickering, quibbling, 
misunderstandings, and dissensions, personal animosities 
aroused, prejudices confirmed—leading to nothing except 
confusion of mind and purposes. That is what we find. 
But need it be so? If we will give our young people 
systematic instruction and training in these matters, if 
we will thresh out in the schoolroom and school organi¬ 
zations the thousand and one questions that arise, 
assisting the pupils not only to discern the truth and 
take the desirable action in the particular cases in dispute 
but also to perceive the broad, basic principles underlying 
all argument, can we not go far toward securing the kind 
of informal argument I have been discussing? Not that 
we shall reach perfection, of course, for human nature is 
human nature; but we shall have a far better type of 
reasoning and argument than we have had hitherto and 



50 


The New Democracy in 


a far more satisfactory method of molding public opinion 
and making decisions. 

Speech making. The ability to stand before one’s 
fellows and speak to them pointedly and movingly on 
topics of interest to them is much coveted and richly 
rewarded in a democracy such as ours. I do not mean 
professional and oratorical public speaking, such as that 
practiced by the lawyer, the preacher, the lecturer, the 
politician. Certainly this has great value, but it requires 
a certain talent which, though not necessarily of a very 
high order, is possessed by a limited few. School training 
in this kind of speech making, therefore, should be given 
only to those who reveal undoubted gifts. The kind of 
public speaking which should be taught in school is the 
kind practiced by men and women in the customary life 
of the plains. At meetings of labor unions, granges, 
fraternal organizations, church societies, Rotary and 
Kiwanis clubs, women’s clubs, it is the person that can 
speak most forcefully and fluently on the problems that 
demand solution who is most likely to become the leader, 
to influence public sentiment and sway it according to 
his will. 

Not everyone can become an effective speaker even in 
these humbler forms. But there is no one who cannot 
become more effective than he would otherwise be, by 
being given directed experience in school and by being 
encouraged to speak on occasions that arise in class and 
school organizations; and, since it is a certainty that the 
average person will be frequently placed in situations in 
life where he wishes and needs to deliver his mind to a 
group of his peers, surely we must incorporate speech 
making into our course of study in English. We should 



The Teaching of English 


51 


not set up lofty standards of oratory, as do the pedagogs 
in the Palace; we should be content if we succeed in 
training the boys — and certainly in these days, the girls 
—to speak frankly, clearly, briefly, directly, with some 
degree of charm and persuasiveness and personal magnet¬ 
ism, or at least with some degree of intelligibility and 
intelligence. The only trustworthy test is, Did it get 
over to the audience ? The speeches the children make may 
seem puerile and amateurish to the literary crew in the 
Palace, whose standards have been set high by Burke 
and Webster and those great orators who produced 
literature, but it is the kind of speech most practiced and 
most practical in the ordinary affairs of life. 

Story-telling. Here again I believe we gain some¬ 
thing by substituting the term “story-telling” for the 
older term “narration.” For it is story -telling that 
the dwellers in the plains find most useful and desirable. 
Only the specially favored, the elect, can create and write 
narratives; everyone tells stories. A literary short story 
is a work of fine art; even among people of decidedly 
literary tastes and talents, even among the inmates of 
the Palace of Pedagogy, there are but few who can 
construct the literary story. In all my years in school, 
both as student and as teacher, I have known only a 
few really good, publishable short stories to be written 
by students, though I have read hundreds of attempts. 
Do we want good short stories? Let us read the maga¬ 
zines. And let us leave the fine art of literary narration 
to those who have the talent, the while we train our 
pupils in the humbler sister craft of telling stories. 

What kinds of stories? The three kinds which we all 
have to tell: anecdotes, humorous, striking, apt, and pat; 



52 


The New Democracy in 


personal experiences, stories of what we have seen and 
heard and done; and children’s stories, for there is hardly 
one of us who is not called upon at some time to tell the 
centuries-old classics of the nursery to our sons and 
daughters, our nephews and nieces, our younger brothers 
and sisters, our boy and girl friends. There is a special 
art in telling each of these three types of stories; there 
are certain fundamental principles to learn and methods 
to practice. Most of us tell stories ineffectively and 
awkwardly and crudely, missing the fine points and 
delicate touches and subtle effects; yet most of us could 
learn how to do it fairly well provided we were given 
instruction and experience. Surely here is a pleasant 
task for the English teachers, if only they will break 
loose from the traditions of the Palace of Pedagogy, if 
only they will occasionally unhitch their wagon from the 
star of fine art and put it to the humbler uses for which, 
after all, the wagon was intended. 

Letter writing. I need not emphasize the importance 
of letter writing of both the social and the business type. 
Even the pedagogs in the Palace have laid down their 
arms in this engagement. But we are half-hearted in 
reaping the fruits of our victory. Surely, since the writ¬ 
ing of letters is virtually the only kind of writing done in 
the homes and places of business on the plains, we ought 
to give pronounced and prolonged training in the writing 
of letters. But we don’t. We do a little desultory and 
dilettante dabbling in this important art, we put up a 
sheepish and half-furtive pretense; but it is felt to be a 
concession to the radicals and utilitarians, and as soon as 
the bare letter of the law has been observed the teacher 
leads her class straightway back to the familiar and 



The Teaching of English 


53 


traditional fields of expositions and short stories and 
literary descriptions. We don’t really teach letter writ¬ 
ing; we merely putter about, touching the subject here 
and there, but failing to establish thoroughly the prin¬ 
ciples and train in the practice of this type of language 
activity. 

Various written forms. Then there are the written 
forms, such, for example, as note taking, making reports, 
keeping diaries and records and household and office 
accounts, drawing up petitions, writing announcements 
for posting and printing—prosaic, unpretentious types 
of writing, but how necessary! And how neglected! 
From the standpoint of education and of life, it is more 
important to train a pupil to write out a report of a com¬ 
mittee of which he is chairman, write it legibly, clearly, 
correctly, effectively, than to require him to write an 
essay or an oration or a character sketch or a book review. 
These homely, bread-and-butter species of writing may 
not be needed in the Palace of Pedagogy; they are inces¬ 
santly demanded in the plains and valleys below. 

Importance of oral English. So much for the types 
of language activity which should supplant the four forms 
of discourse of the old-time rhetoric. Six of these types 
are predominantly oral. And this is as it should be. If 
anyone will honestly follow, for a day or for a month, the 
life of a student in school or an adult in even a profes¬ 
sion, to say nothing of an adult in a trade or in indus¬ 
try, he will be struck with the constant and inexorable 
demands made upon him to use the oral types of language 
and the infrequent and evadable requests to use the 
written types. Any English teacher who tries to base his 
teaching upon the actual day-by-day lives and needs and 



54 


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social desires of his pupils rather than upon the ex cathedra 
assignments from a textbook will discover that there are 
hundreds of occasions for using the different kinds of oral 
language and but rare occasions for using those of written 
language; and, moreover, he will have valid reasons for 
teaching the oral forms, whereas he must invent excuses 
for dealing with the written forms. And if this is true of 
life in school, it is trebly true of life outside of and beyond 
school. For in school, in the business of teaching and 
learning, we employ, naturally and legitimately, more writ¬ 
ing than any of us—unless it be those who live in the 
Palace of Pedagogy—will ever have occasion to use out 
of school. We must realize the paramount importance 
of oral expression. Some of us have come to believe that 
half of the time available for English training should 
be given over to oral English; we shall come to believe 
that a much larger ratio of time should be devoted to it. 
The pedagogs in the Palace will oppose us, since the 
oral types are, for the most part, not so literary, so artistic, 
so elevated and dignified, and not so easily reduced to 
rules and formulas as the written types; but nothing 
short of this will allow us to teach sensible, practical, 
functional English. 

English in the higher institutions. Up to this point I 
have been discussing elementary- and high-school English. 
Let me now glance at normal-school, college, and univer¬ 
sity English and see its bearing on our problem. 

It might seem that here we are poaching on the preserves 
of others. The higher institutions of learning, we might 
contend, may very well be left to their own devices. They 
can work out their own ideas and plan their courses of 
study, and in general it may be assumed that they do it 



The Teaching of English 


55 


well, much better than we could do it for them. When 
a student, now mature enough to have graduated from 
high school, elects English, especially when he majors in 
English, he indicates clearly that he has, or thinks he has, 
a literary temperament and a special interest in English, 
and that he desires a higher and a special education in 
English. He thus joins a small, select group, far differ¬ 
ent from the large, unclassified mass of boys and girls in 
the high school. The arguments we have been urging 
have no validity here. By all means let us wish our 
young friend Godspeed in his Anglo-Saxon, his pre- 
Shakespearean drama, his history of literature, his 
courses in exposition and narration. “I too have been 
in Arcadia”; it was my good fortune to travel through 
that country. And then as student of English I believed, 
and now as teacher of English I contend, that no country 
is more spacious and noble and hospitable and delight¬ 
ful than the country of books and writing. 

But this is not quite the whole story. A goodly num¬ 
ber of those who attend normal school, college, and 
university come out to teach—English among other 
subjects — in high schools. They are certificated by the 
state and employed by the state to teach and train the 
youth of the state, all the youth of the state, the multi¬ 
tude of boys and girls who will not and should not spe¬ 
cialize in English, who desire and need instruction and 
guidance in the common, practical business of speech and 
the humbler, lighter forms of reading. Now, what if 
these graduates of higher institutions have not had any 
education in English except in Anglo-Saxon and Middle 
English and the classics and in the literary and artistic 
modes of expression—what would happen? What does 

5 



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happen ? Our graduates, now metamorphosed into teachers 
of English in the “poor man’s colleges,’’ the high schools* 
the schools designed to train the “common run ” of citizens 
and to prepare for the unimposing but important pursuits 
of life—our graduates forthwith move, bag and baggage, 
books and student lamp, to the Palace of Pedagogy on 
the hill, and there begin to impose upon the boys and 
girls in the plains the same kind of cultural, aesthetic, 
literary English which they themselves have had. Does 
this not happen? And thus we go on perpetuating the 
un-American, undemocratic system. We call for teachers 
to train the boys and girls in the fundamental matters of 
reading and speaking, and the higher institutions respond 
by sending us pedagogs nurtured in the traditions of the 
Palace on the hill. It is vain to talk of a democratic high 
school as long as we have an aristocratic college and 
university. 

I shall not undertake to prescribe what English should 
be taught in the higher schools. But this I know, or I 
think I know: that some of the English work in college 
should deal specifically with the subject matter and the 
methods involved in the teaching of high-school English, 
and that those who intend to teach English should take 
this work. Among the courses which should be offered 
are: modern literature, including fiction and poetry and 
the modern newspaper and magazine; oral English in its 
various forms; and sound, progressive courses in the 
teaching of high-school English. If there is not suf¬ 
ficient time for such courses and also for the traditional 
cultural courses in English, the latter must give way, as 
being not so essential to teachers of high-school English. 
Surely this is not an untenable position. 



The Teaching of English 


57 


One other indictment I have to bring against the 
English course and the English teachers in normal schools, 
colleges, and universities. Nearly all these schools require 
what they call Freshman English, which every student, no 
matter in what department he is enrolled or in what sub¬ 
ject he is specializing, must take. In my judgment we 
have no shadow of right to require Freshman English 
unless we make Freshman English of undoubted and 
specific value to every Freshman, no matter what his 
interests are and his vocation is to be. Now, in general, 
Freshman English' is open to precisely the same objections 
which have been brought against high-school English. It 
consists of writing in the four traditional forms of discourse, 
with little attention given to the oral phases of English, 
and of general “survey” study of literature, with readings 
in the classics, no time being allotted to newspapers, maga¬ 
zines, and contemporary literature. That specialists in 
English or those particularly interested in literary matters 
should be required to take this course seems reasonable 
enough; but when we require it of students of law,-of 
medicine, of agriculture, of engineering, we are saying 
in effect: “There is but one kind of reading that is 
important, the reading of the classics; there is but one 
form of expression, the literary form”—which is, word 
for word, the creed of the pedagogs in the Palace. Can a 
kind of English not be found which will be more valuable 
for the future farmer or business man or dentist than these 
required courses Tn the history of literature and the 
biographies of authors and in the scribbling of literary 
exercises? If this is the best that English can offer, then 
English as a required subject is doomed. As a teacher 
of English literature and language I yield to no one 



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in my conviction that English can be made educative 
and profitable for all; but as a teacher of American boys 
and girls I stand firmly for this principle: “No course 
in English should be required that does not possess 
demonstrable general value for all and specific value for 
each.” 

I have been speaking of the Palace of Pedagogy. The 
old-fashioned college is the training school for the Palace. 
The college is where the dogma of formal discipline still 
holds sway, where the pretty conceit of a liberal education 
still has admirers, where the ideal of a static, stately 
culture reigns supreme. In no department of the old- 
fashioned college except the department of education 
does one find a democratic theory of education. The 
professors of English, of history, of languages, of science, 
of mathematics, still cleave to an obsolete, aristocratic 
philosophy, based upon the theory that there is but one 
kind of education, of success, of culture, of life: their 
kind. They set themselves, with a conscience and a 
resolution worthy of a better cause, to the task performed 
successfully only once in all history: they would create 
man in their own image! This is the very essence of the 
pedagogy of the Palace. 

The Palace of Art and the Palace of Pedagogy. But 

I must return to Tennyson’s poem, “The Palace of Art.” 
The poet built his soul a lordly pleasure house, where 
she could live alone, high above the “darkening droves 
of swine that range on yonder plain.” 

And so she throve and prosper’d: so three years 
She prosper’d: on the fourth she fell, 

Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, 

Struck thro’ with pangs of hell. 



The Teaching of English 


59 


Lest she should fail and perish utterly, 
God, before whom ever lie bare 
The abysmal deeps of Personality, 

Plagued her with sore despair. 


Deep dread and loathing of her solitude 
Fell on her, from which mood was born 
Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood 
Laughter at her self-scorn. 


So when four years were wholly finished 
She threw her royal robes away. 

“Make me a cottage in the vale,” she said, 

‘ ‘ Where I may mourn and pray. 

“Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are 
So lightly, beautifully built: 

Perchance I may return with others there 
When I have purged my guilt.” 

“Perchance I may return with others .” I would that 
all mankind might dwell on the heights, in the Palace 
of Art, in the Palace of Pedagogy, that all might breathe 
that air serene, be free from drudgery and ignorance 
and the grinding cares of existence and the disheartening 
tasks and petty problems of everyday living. But until 
that blessed day comes, the poets must descend from the 
Palace of Art and the teachers from the Palace of Peda¬ 
gogy, must build them “cottages in the vale, ” “houses by 
the side of the road, ” yea, in the midst of the villages on 
the plain, and there they must instruct and awaken and 
elevate and inspire the common sons and daughters of 
man in the commonplace work of man. This is the task 
to which we are called and challenged. Perchance, after 
we have purged away our guilt of egotism, of aristocracy, 
of intellectual pride, “perchance we may return with 
others there.” 





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III. DEMOCRATIC IDEALS OF CULTURE AND 
EFFICIENCY: THEIR RELATION TO ENGLISH 

Purpose of discussion. To determine whether the 
English subjects are essentially cultural or practical is 
the purpose of this discussion. But before we can judge 
whether the principles of culture or of efficiency should 
be predominant in the teaching of the English subjects, 
we must examine minutely our two major terms. Many 
of the misunderstandings and misconceptions we have 
labored under, many of the blunders we have made in 
education and life have been due to feeble and crooked 
thinking, to lazy acceptance of hazy catchwords, to 
traditional notions—heirlooms from a remote past. In 
this address, therefore, I propose to devote a great deal of 
my attention to a consideration of the general principles, 
then make but a brief application of those principles to 
the teaching of English. What is culture? What is 
efficiency? And what relation do they bear to the group 
of English subjects and to their democratization? These 
I conceive to be the vital questions. 

What is culture? The reader need not fear that I 
shall attempt to mark out the exact limits beyond which 
culture may not extend, that I shall try to build a tight, 
high fence around it. To define culture too straitly is to 
deny it altogether. It is too spiritual to be embodied in 
substantial rules; you cannot cork up this genie in a 
bottle. It is easier to recognize culture than to analyze 
it. Yet I must, so far as I am able, resolve it into its 
elements; I must break up this warm, clear beam of 



The Teaching of English 


61 


sunlight into all the colors that compose it. Clear-cut 
thinking on this subject were not possible otherwise. 

But before I attempt a positive determination of what 
are the component elements in culture, before I attempt 
to answer the question, What is culture? I wish to 
attack the question, What is culture not? For con¬ 
cerning culture there are two prevalent errors that bar 
the way of our analysis. 

Cultivation not culture. The first error is that cul¬ 
ture is polish, politeness, good manners, observance of 
the laws of etiquette. Culture is no such superficial, 
artificial thing as that. Good manners depend upon 
fixed rules, which are altered, like fashions, as ways and 
customs and modes of living come and pass, which hold 
sway for a limited time in a circumscribed sphere. What 
was “good form” a century ago may be “bad form” now. 
What is “good form” in the city is not necessarily “good 
form” in the country. It is impolite to speak to a 
stranger in a crowded city street; it is impolite not to 
speak to a stranger in a lonely country road. Culti¬ 
vation is not culture; often it is not even indicative of 
culture. The crass farm boy who fails to lift his hat to 
a lady may have more true chivalry in his heart than the 
urbane gallant who knows all the pretty ways of social 
usage. Surely, culture is not such a petty, ephemeral 
matter. It does change, to be sure; it grows and develops 
from century to century, and it takes various shapes in 
different countries and civilizations. But it is not a 
mere mode, a fashion, a style, a fad; it is deep-rooted, 
it is fundamental and elemental. Let us not confound 
culture with good breeding, though we should not the 
less appreciate good breeding and all that it implies. 



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Knowledge not culture. The second misconception is 
that culture is knowledge, usually interpreted as knowl¬ 
edge of the “liberal arts” subjects, of the humanities, 
of belles-lettres. According to this view, you must 
be steeped in literature and history, you must be able 
to read in at least one foreign language, you must have 
“gone through” geometry, you must be able to prate 
of books and authors, painting and music, else you are 
outside the pale. You may be an estimable person, 
useful, influential, but you are not cultured. Now there 
is a modicum of truth in the foundation idea of this 
conception of culture, just enough truth to beget error. 
Certain subjects do contain more cultural food than 
others and may thus contribute more generously to the 
development of culture. But knowledge is never iden¬ 
tical with culture, however closely related it may be. 
One may attain culture with surprisingly little knowledge 
of the so-called cultural subjects, and one may fail to 
attain culture after a lifetime spent in the acquisition of 
the humanities. In truth, the setting up of a narrow, 
prescribed list of information as containing the sum and 
substance of culture, as including “that knowledge which 
is the common property of all cultured persons,” is sub¬ 
versive of the first principles of culture. Pray, what is 
it that makes the knowledge that agricola is the Latin 
word for “farmer” more precious and powerful in life 
than a knowledge of farming? Why should knowing 
about the Rosetta stone be more contributive to the 
enrichment of life than knowing shorthand? or knowing 
what kind of clothes Queen Elizabeth wore be more 
significant than the ability to make one’s self a dress? 
No single mind can now take all knowledge as its province; 



The Teaching of English 


63 


no one should arrogate to his subject or group of subjects 
all the grace and beauty and benignity and humanizing 
influences of knowledge. Culture can bloom and flourish 
on the scantiest of learning. What counts is not so much 
the contents of one’s mind as the state of one’s mind. 
Let us not confuse knowledge with culture, though we 
should by no means despise knowledge of any kind, 
whether useful or pleasant. 

Other misconceptions of culture. Along with these 
two cardinal errors we must place a number of other 
narrow and twisted ideas of the quality of culture. A 
gentleman of the old school was wont to assert very 
dogmatically that you could always tell a cultured person 
by the elegance and correctness of his language, adding 
that a truly cultured person never uses slang. Piffle! 
It is said that one who cannot write a good social letter 
is uncultured. Stuff! Some one else says you must 
have traveled widely before you may call yourself cul¬ 
tured. Nonsense! These are the blunders of the intel¬ 
lectual aristocrats. Culture is nothing so definite, so 
obvious, so recognizable; it does not reveal its presence 
through such crude tests. The moment you erect arti¬ 
ficial standards of this sort, you cheapen and stultify 
the very idea of culture. None of these is of the true 
and authentic nature of culture, though each may, or 
may not, make contributions to it or give evidence of 
its existence. 

Democratic culture. What, then, is culture? Or, to 
put the question somewhat more suggestively, what is 
culture in a democratic country like America? For, 
obviously, democratic culture and aristocratic culture are 
diverse, and, obviously again, it is the democratic ideals 



64 


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of culture which we wish to set up and approximate to as 
closely as possible in our day and world. Greece had her 
culture, Rome had hers. Each race, each epoch, sets 
before itself, more or less consciously, certain individual 
and social ideals of taste, conduct, character, a certain 
philosophy of life, a certain standard of personal, civic, and 
moral virtue. When we speak of a man as “cultured/’ we 
mean, in the last analysis, that he sums up within himself 
these national and racial ideals. Let us understand, 
therefore, that in the discussion that follows I am using 
the word culture as meaning democratic culture, the 
culture which we prize in our modern American civili¬ 
zation. 

What, then, is culture, the culture of our democracy? 
Its elements, I think, are five: appreciation of beauty, a 
rich, emotional nature under control, many-sided inter¬ 
est in life, sympathy, and a well-trained mind. I shall 
discuss these elements in the order in which I have named 
them. 

Appreciation of beauty. First, a feeling for beauty, an 
appreciation and a full recognition of its gracious influ¬ 
ence in the life of men. And by beauty, I hasten to 
say, I do not mean mere prettiness, mere shapely form or 
musical sound or fragrant odor or bright, well-harmo¬ 
nized color. A farmer is cutting the purple asters and 
goldenrod that grow in his fields, and a poet passing by 
groans at the wanton destruction of beauty. But the 
farmer may have in his mind’s eye a vision of broad fields 
of wheat, may see that grain feeding hungry children; 
he may discern a beauty far finer than that of the poet; 
he may be mowing down surface^prettiness to make room 
for essential beauty. How beautiful are the gossamer 



The Teaching of English 


65 


hammocks which the spider hangs, during the night, over 
the herbs and weeds in the fields! But not so beautiful 
as the delicate and intricate organism by which the 
spider, which we deem ugly, spins its web. A butterfly 
hovering above flowers is lovely, yet not so wondrously 
beautiful as the metamorphosis of the worm into that 
same butterfly. Beautiful was the deathbed of Tennyson 
— the majestic figure reposing in peace and resignation 
upon the bed, the soft moonlight beaming upon him and 
upon the volume of Shakespeare on his breast. Yes, but 
not so nobly beautiful as the death of a young American 
soldier writhing in the slime and muck of a Flanders 
battlefield in the midst of the hideousness and filth of war. 

Not that I would decry prettiness. Flowers, birds’ 
songs, moonlight nights, murmuring streams, these have 
also their mission, their ministry to the hearts of men. 
But we have so narrowed our conception of beauty that 
we have shut out all but this type of beauty and are 
prone to condemn those who do not recognize and appre¬ 
ciate this type. If one dare say that he does not enjoy 
music or poetry, if one is blind to the glory of the sunset or 
of a forest tree in its autumn transfiguration, we call him 
dead to beauty, we say he has no appreciation of the finer 
things of life, whereas he may have more feeling for the 
truer beauties of existence and human relationship, for 
the deeper harmonies of life, than have we professed 
worshipers of conventionalized, poetic beauty. I do 
not assert that he does have; I say he may have. Nor 
am I suggesting that everything is beauty, for I know 
better. What I am endeavoring to say is that beauty is 
pervasive, multifarious, that she assumes as _many forms 
as Proteus; we affront her by narrowing’her manifestations. 



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Beauty is fitness, beauty is proper relationship. There 
is a beauty of use, a beauty of conduct, a beauty of service, 
a beauty of morality, a beauty of truth, far finer and more 
exquisite than the beauty upon which we devotees of 
culture have lavished so much sentiment. I verily believe 
that no one is cultured who does not have an intense 
appreciation of beauty, and who does not labor that 
beauty may prevail, but it is no petty, integumentory 
prettiness that I have in mind. 

A rich, emotional nature under control. Nor do I call 
that person cultured who does not possess a broad, rich, 
emotional nature, and that nature balanced and poised, 
under control. One must be sensitive to life, must react 
to its stimuli, its glory and sordidness, its comedies and 
tragedies, its hopes and fears, its beauty and ugliness. He 
must be eternally aware of them, and respond with the 
appropriate thrill of happiness or chill of grief. The 
fount of his tears must flow, his cheek must blanch with 
fear, his heart swell with grief, his muscles grow taught 
with indignation, his teeth set with resolution, his eyes 
glow with aspiration. The cultured person has a wide 
gamut of emotions, and his heartstrings vibrate readily to 
every touch. He feels, feels keenly, strongly, deeply. 
He whose emotions are atrophied through disuse, he whose 
bosom is so hard that the arrows of life cannot penetrate it, 
lacks one of the intrinsic elements of culture. 

But it is necessary that this strong, virile, emotional 
temperament be under control. We know very little 
about the education of the emotions, but I think we know 
that it consists in encouraging all the elemental human 
feelings and at the same time purifying them, guiding them. 
There are those who fancy that culture is calmness, apathy, 



The Teaching of English 


67 


who think it ill-bred to display feeling, who shrink back 
from anything “common” or human, anything likely to 
ripple the surface of their lives. This is mere repression. 
Such persons stand upon the bank of the river of existence, 
with their boats drawn up on the shore. This is the 
glory of life: to be swept along by the powerful current of 
vital human feelings — to love, hate, aspire, fear, laugh, 
weep, worship, pity—yet to control our course, yea, to 
make the current serve to carry us whither we would go. 
And this is one of the masculine factors in true culture; 
culture is sterile without it. 

Many-sided interest in life. The third element in 
democratic culture is not unlike the second. The cul¬ 
tured person has an expansive interest in life; he thinks 
nothing human to be foreign to him. It is an erroneous idea 
that the cultured man or woman is detached, impersonal, 
a star that dwells apart. He inhabits not the palace of 
art but the house by the side of the road, and into it he 
invites all kinds and conditions of men, and from it he 
emerges to mingle freely with his fellows. He can hold 
converse with the old on death and immortality, with the 
young on love and romance, with the minister on the arts 
of pastorship, with the hunter on the pursuits of the 
chase, with the farmer on raising chickens. Though 
absorbed at one moment in one interest, he can leave it 
at will and plunge himself into another, perhaps diamet¬ 
rically opposite. The cultured man cannot be a bigot, 
a partisan; he has too many points of view, can stand in 
the shoes of too many others. He does not travel con¬ 
tinually the same road, is not tied down to a monotonous 
routine, is not confined to one field of thought or one 
round of activities, does not bore you with reiteration 



68 


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of his one song. It is not so much that he contains 
all knowledge as that he is accessible to all knowledge. 
It is not so much his,full mind as his open mind. One 
sure indication of the cultured person is the breadth, the 
diversity, and richness of his scope of interests. 

Sympathy. Sympathy is the fourth element in demo¬ 
cratic culture. Here again I wish to enlarge the con¬ 
ventional meaning of the term. By sympathy I mean 
more than pity: I mean fellow-feeling, rejoicing with them 
that rejoice, weeping with them that weep. Sympathy 
implies fellowship, ability to put one’s self in the other 
man’s place, to understand his thoughts, to get his angle 
of vision. There is no more certain proof of lack of cul¬ 
ture than selfishness, self-seeking, self-absorption, plunging 
ahead to gratify one’s desires and ambitions regardless 
of the rights and feelings of others. The cultured man 
or woman is considerate of other persons, even of the 
lower animals, because he has imagination enough to 
enable him to apprehend their states of mind and because, 
through his kinship with them, he feels for them and with 
them. Let us not confuse this with mere politeness, 
mere grace of manner, deference, courtesy. True sym¬ 
pathy goes deeper than that: it is related more closely 
to benevolence, charity, love. Would you know the 
cultured man? Does he grieve when his friends are 
stricken with sorrow? Does he rejoice when his friends 
make merry? Does he fear with them, love with them? 
Does he lose himself in them? Can he play with the 
children and cheer the bed of the aged? Is he kindly, 
compassionate, tolerant, catholic in his sympathies, and 
democratically indulgent? This is the man of culture: 
he who obeys the Golden Rule most implicitly. . 



The Teaching of English 


69 


A well-trained mind. The fifth attribute of the cul¬ 
tured person is a well-trained mind. There is only one 
way to train the mind: to employ it in real activities, 
to engage it in genuine, vital experiences, accustoming it 
to reflect upon these activities and experiences, to learn 
from success much and from failure as much as is possible, 
to judge, compare, contrast, to remember what is signifi¬ 
cant and to bring what one remembers to bear on any 
present problem, to discern clearly the roots of the matter 
at issue and to ignore what is extraneous, to project one’s 
self outward and forward in imagination. To do all 
this long enough is to insure a well-trained mind: nothing 
else will produce it. No formal set of mental gymnastic 
exercises will suffice, nothing but educative activities often 
repeated and reflected upon will serve. Memorizing 
Latin declensions, conning geometric laws, tabulating the 
succession of English kings or of Revolutionary War 
battles, learning the names and dates of authors and their 
books: this may produce well-filled minds, not well- 
trained minds. Studies can train the mind only in pro¬ 
portion as the studies deal with actualities, of personal 
import to the student. Thus studies become experience, 
life material, upon which the mind may reflect, even as 
upon the events of one’s own existence. 

No one is cultured if he lacks this kind of mind. He 
may be amiable, attractive, “nice,” but, lacking a well- 
trained mind, he lacks one of the dynamic factors of 
culture. It is not necessary that the mind be trained 
logically. It need not be disciplined in school. It may 
have little of the learning which is traditional in our 
curriculum; but it must be a mind capable of conceiving 
clearly, judging justly, balancing fairly, remembering 



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freshly, imagining vividly, concentrating sharply. Such 
a mind does not in itself constitute culture, for it some¬ 
times is the possession of one who is utterly hard and 
selfish, impervious to all the finer phases of life. Demo¬ 
cratic culture requires all five elements: a feeling for 
beauty, an emotional nature strong but controlled, varied 
interests, wide sympathies, a well-trained mind. And 
these must be fused into perfect union with one another 
and interfused with the individuality, the intrinsic, 
temperamental quality of the person, so that the culture 
of no two beings, though composed of the same elements, 
is alike. 

Summary. I presume this analysis of culture has 
pleased neither the old school of thought nor the new. 
The old school men will contend that I have minimized 
the knowledge element in culture. I can hear them 
quoting Matthew Arnold and Walter Pater and others 
of my friends and acquaintances, to the effect that 
culture is the knowledge of the best of the past, that 
culture is the sharing in that learning that is possessed by 
all educated persons. This is the culture of aristocracy, 
not the culture of democracy. Let me repeat that no one 
is capacious enough to comprehend all the vast extent 
of human knowledge, that there is no certain knowledge 
that can be singled out as exclusively cultural, that 
culture is more an attitude toward knowledge, an interest 
in all forms of knowledge, and a humility in the presence 
of true knowledge in any form. Culture implies rather 
that a stream of knowledge has flowed through the mind, 
depositing a soil which is alluvial, instinct with generous 
thought, capable of engendering gracious feelings and 
beneficent deeds. Doubtless the native richness of 



The Teaching of English 


71 


the stream is important, but yet more important is the 
contour and nature of the region through which the 
stream flows. 

And some of the modern educationarphilosophers may 
take issue with me because I have claimed too much for 
culture. I have claimed much for it, for it is, according 
to my analysis, the finest flower of human personality. 
But however desirable it may be, however much I may 
admire anyone who possesses more of it than I do, it is 
only a part of one’s equipment for life, only one of the 
strands in the cable by which man tries to climb toward 
the ideal. Culture, as I have defined it, does not include 
—though assuredly it does not exclude—those essential 
qualities which we call spiritual: bravery, humor, religious 
fervor; and it takes no account at all of the other group 
of powers that we group under the title of efficiency. 
Culture is whole and perfect within itself, we need not 
broaden it to comprise all virtues in order to justify it; 
but the human being who possesses only culture, even in 
its brightest effulgence, is not whole and perfect within 
himself. To it must be added efficiency, modern effi¬ 
ciency, democratic efficiency. 

Culture and efficiency not to be confused. I have 
no patience with those who insist that culture and effi¬ 
ciency are but different aspects of the same quality, 
reverse sides of a coin. They are not the same. To 
use the terms of geometry, they are complementary, 
not identical. They are not incompatible—in fact, they 
are so frequently blended in the human personality that 
it is sometimes impossible to fix the limits of either; 
but they are nevertheless widely different in nature, 
methods, purposes, and accomplishments. Let no one 


6 



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persuade you that culture leads inevitably to efficiency, 
or that efficiency grows into culture. Much of our 
obfuscated philosophy in education has resulted because, 
perceiving that everyone needs both culture and effi¬ 
ciency, we have “clashed the two together,” have tried 
to obtain both by the same means, the same education, 
have endeavored to make the cultural subjects practical 
and the practical subjects cultural. 

The difference between the two will be made very 
evident by a brief analysis of efficiency. We shall not 
need many words, for concerning this phase of our subject 
there is not much probability of misunderstanding. In 
this analysis I shall examine efficiency at its highest and 
best in our modern and democratic world, ignoring the 
sinister associations connected with the term but not 
necessarily a part of it. 

What is efficiency? Efficiency implies, first of all, 
ability to make a good living, to get on and up in the 
world, to work at some calling skillfully, capably, with 
deftness and without friction and waste; to succeed, in 
the material sense of the word, that is, to make money, 
hold good jobs. As society is now constituted, this 
means mastery of some one gainful vocation—it matters 
not what, though, of course, some vocations demand 
more intelligence or manual skill or physical strength 
than others, and some vocations are more remunerative. 

In the second place, efficiency implies certain work 
habits and qualities. Industry, inventiveness, energy, 
perseverance, patience, thrift, ambition, ability to work 
rapidly and easily, to eliminate useless motions, to dis¬ 
cover the speediest mode of working well—these are 
some of the most important of work habits and qualities. 



The Teaching of English 


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Now, this demands intelligence, it demands a well- 
trained mind. To be sure, in some kinds of work a man 
may apparently be efficient through sheer skill or brute 
strength, but even here ingenuity and shrewdness count. 
And in the higher callings notable efficiency is not possible 
without a finely trained mind. It need not be a capacious 
mind, it may be a narrow mind—that depends upon the 
vocation—but it must be keen, alert, logical, able to 
cope with every situation, to follow up every ramification 
in the business in which it is employed. 

Physical health and vigor is the fourth factor in the 
efficient life. This includes all that has to do with 
preserving and improving bodily well-being, such as 
play and recreation and practical knowledge of the body 
and the laws of health. 

Finally, efficiency in most vocations is not possible 
without ability to get on with our fellows. We may not 
be interested in them especially; but as our success 
depends upon our power to deal skillfully with those with 
whom we are brought into contact, it is evident that to 
be efficient we must study human nature and cultivate 
certain social graces. 

Culture and efficiency contrasted. Surely it must be 
evident that culture and efficiency, as thus analyzed, 
have but few points in common. Culture deals with 
the spiritual, the emotional, the aesthetic; efficiency rules 
over the realm of materialism, of direct practicalness, of 
immediate utility. Culture enriches the personality; 
efficiency, the person. Culture regards life as an explora¬ 
tion; efficiency, as a business transaction. Culture is 
aesthetic play; efficiency relates everything, even play, 
to work. Culture asks, “Is it true? Is it beautiful? Is 



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it fine and noble?” Efficiency asks, “What are the 
facts in the case? What does it cost? Does it pay?” 

The circles of culture and efficiency overlap, it would 
seem, at only two places: both claim a well-trained 
intellect, and both establish relationships with human 
beings. But culture prizes more highly the broad, 
sympathetic, catholic mind, the mind open to all truth 
and beauty; whereas efficiency prizes more highly the 
canny, practical mind, the mind well stored with useful 
facts. And with regard to contact with life, culture goes 
out from itself, wanders somewhat aimlessly in attractive 
by-paths, searching — though never directly—for beauty, 
for the grace and glory of life, for emotional and aesthetic 
experiences. Culture regardeth not the harvest, except 
indeed its beauty, seeketh not her own. Culture is centrif¬ 
ugal. But efficiency is centripetal. It relates everything 
to itself, ignores all that has no immediate bearing upon 
profit, is impatient with beauty for the sake of beauty, 
though it cultivates that beauty which is negotiable. In 
culture it is what we think of other men that counts; in 
efficiency it is what other men think of us. 

Or, consider the attitude of the two toward morality. 
Culture says: “Be honest, for honesty is an aspect of 
honor, of truth, of beauty; an honest action is in tune 
with the harmony of life.” Efficiency says: “Be honest, 
for honesty is the best policy.” Culture says: “Be 
courteous, for courtesy comes from the heart; it is an 
emanation of love, good will, benevolence.” Efficiency 
says: “Be courteous; it’s good business.” 

Let us not be deceived in this matter. Culture and 
efficiency are not the same, not even similar. They 
face in opposite directions. If occasionally they meet at 



The Teaching of English 


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a common equator, yet at their extremes they are as far 
apart as the poles. Culture cannot be practical; effi¬ 
ciency, though it dons the clothing and the manners of 
culture, remains efficiency. 

Both culture and efficiency essential in life. But it 

does not follow that, because culture and efficiency are 
not the same, they are not both essential in life in demo¬ 
cratic America, or that they may not both be acquired 
by the same person. Or, to state it positively, the well- 
rounded, evenly balanced, full-grown individual, the 
happiest, most useful individual, is he who combines 
within himself the five qualities of culture and the five 
qualities of efficiency: he who can make a good living, be 
thoroughly efficient, take part in practical affairs, and at 
the same time live a full, rich, varied life, attaining a 
fuller measure of culture every year he lives. Happy is 
he if his vocation permits and encourages him to view 
existence from both angles, to travel as far east as west. 
In no calling, indeed, whether the ministry of the gospel 
or the ministry of the coal mine, need one renounce the 
joys and values of either the aesthetic or the practical. 
But since some vocations lean too far in the one direc¬ 
tion or the other, we must needs restore the balance by 
readjusting avocations. Life demands both. We should 
work and we should play—not work in order that we 
may have leisure to play, not play that we may have 
health to work, but work and play because both are 
necessary to fulfill our natures, to perfect and complete 
our lives. 

The school's contribution to culture and efficiency. 

And if this is true, it follows that school education, which 
is training and preparation for complete living out of 



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and beyond school by means of complete living within 
school, should make contributions to both culture and 
efficiency. (I say “contributions,” for it is evident that 
school can give but a small portion of either.) I would 
not have John cultured and Will efficient; I would have 
both John and Will both cultured and efficient. I prefer 
one man with two eyes to two men each with one eye. 

Three principles, far-reaching in their effect upon the 
curriculum and methods of teaching, not only of the 
English subjects, but of all the other subjects, may be 
based upon the preceding truths: 

First, the school curriculum as a whole should be 
made up of those activities, subjects, and parts of sub¬ 
jects that contribute to both democratic culture and 
efficiency. 

Second, the school curriculum should contain nothing 
else, except, perhaps, certain moral and civic ideas and 
ideals not comprised in either of our major terms. 

Third, each subject or part of subject should be closely 
scrutinized to determine whether its material and methods 
may be expected to add something to democratic culture 
on the one hand or to efficiency on the other. There 
should be no confusion of purposes or values. The 
two kinds of education should be kept absolutely separate; 
if they mingle, let them mingle in the personality of the 
students, not in the methods of the teachers. 

These three principles, if applied to the course of 
study, would work great changes in nearly all the subjects. 
Our task now is to determine their application to the 
English branches. 

Application of culture and efficiency to English teaching. 

Fortunately — in some respects, unfortunately—English 



The Teaching of English 


77 


divides itself naturally, inevitably, into two distinct 
groups, the one cultural, the other practical. I say 
“fortunately,” for it allows the English teacher to give 
her pupils education in both departments of life. I say 
“unfortunately,” for too often the English teacher, not 
recognizing the dual nature of her task, attempts to 
make all the work practical or all the work cultural, or 
selects the wrong parts of it for the one purpose or the 
other. More of this presently. 

The second principle, that we exclude everything that 
does not add some educative increment to the lives of 
our pupils, would enable us to eliminate from English 
a considerable quantity of material which clings to the 
curriculum only because we have false ideas of culture. 
From literature it would cut loose a sodden mass of 
information about authors, dates, literary periods, it 
would banish much memorization of poetry and all cram¬ 
ming for examination in literature, it would do away 
with all that part of our literature material and method 
which has to do with the acquisition of conventional and 
traditional and pseudo-cultural knowledge. It would 
eliminate the intensive study of forms, of vocabulary, 
the insistence upon knowing the meaning of every word 
and the significance of every allusion; for nothing in all 
this adds one cubit to our stature in any of the five 
essentials of culture, and assuredly contributes not one 
iota to our efficiency. It would strike many of the 
classics from our list of literature to be read in school, 
because in content and spirit they are so remote from the 
lives of present-day boys and girls that they cannot 
impress upon them either cultural ideals or practical 
rules of life. In the language group of English subjects 



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our principle would permit us to reduce spelling to that 
limited extent which is needed in the actual writing of 
life, to reduce grammar and rhetoric to that small fraction 
which functions in the written and spoken language of 
communication, since only this contributes to efficiency, 
and nothing in these subjects contributes to genuine 
culture. We should then have left, in literature all that 
has an appreciable effect upon true culture, we should 
have left in language all that prepares us for an efficient 
life. 

The third principle bears directly upon one of the most 
important and puzzling questions of English teaching: 
To what extent should the English subjects be cultural, 
to what extent practical ? This question entails a minute 
examination of the nature of the content and methods 
of the English studies. 

The nature of literature and literary artists. Let us 

consider literature first. What is literature? What is 
there in this subject which we may reasonably expect to 
make a contribution to democratic culture or efficiency? 
To answer it bluntly, we can get out of literature what the 
makers of literature put into it; no more, and, of course, 
not so much as that. What, then, are the purposes of 
the makers of literature? What material do they work 
with? What do they strive for? What manner of men 
are the creators of literature? What manner of creation 
do they offer us? 

The creator of literature is intent primarily on the 
discovery and revelation of beauty. If we except some 
of the most radical realists, all literary artists are, first 
of all, seekers after the beauty of life. They construct 
their poems, their stories, out of the materials, the stuff, 



The Teaching of English 


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of human existence, but they select only that area of 
existence which is beautiful, using the ugly and sordid 
and commonplace only to point out its hidden charm or 
to sharpen the contrast between ugliness and beauty. 
James Russell.Lowell perceives the beauty in a dandelion 
—beauty that our dim eyes, though they have gazed upon 
the flower hundreds ©f times, have not seen; and always 
thereafter we also can perceive the beauty. Shake¬ 
speare may show the ugly degradation in the character of 
Macbeth and may put before us the beastliness of the 
witches, but he traffics in this ugliness only that he may 
the more clearly reveal the beauty of the fundamental 
laws of conduct. Fielding may insist upon our knowing 
Blifil, mean, narrow, spiteful, selfish, hypocritical, but 
only that we may discern more vividly the honest worth 
and sincerity and simple human charm of Tom Jones. 
Beauty of content, beauty, of expression, this is the 
artist’s guiding aim; beauty of scene and circumstance, 
beauty of manners, beauty of motives, of thoughts, 
and of conduct, beauty of truth, sensuous beauty, ethical 
beauty. 

The creator of literature is remarkable, in the second 
place, for his emotional range and his emotional intensity. 
Are not artists notoriously high-strung, palpitating with 
enthusiasms, sensitive to emotional stimuli? Do they not 
veer continually to the shifting gusts of passion ? William 
Cowper lies awake the night through, laughing at the 
thought of John Gilpin and his ride; Keats almost faints 
with ecstasy as he broods over the loveliness of a flower; 
Wordsworth remembers for a lifetime the emotion kindled 
in his heart by the sight of the little Scotch girl; Dickens 
weeps bitterly as he foresees the death of Little Nell. 



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Your true artist is an Eolian harp, which sounds to the 
lightest touch of life’s breeze. A literary artist without 
keen sensibilities, quivering nerves, instantaneous and 
violent reaction to the emotional situations in life, is 
unthinkable. And yet, no matter how impetuous his 
passion, he must guide and control it, else he cannot 
produce art; he must not only ride, he must guide his 
Pegasus. 

Another quality that characterizes the creator of 
literature is his never-ceasing interest and curiosity about 
existence. Most of us accept life without reflection, we 
take it for granted, we are passive, inert, lazy, listless. 
Like horses, we wear blinkers, so that we see only the 
stretch of road just before us; like falcons, we are hooded, 
so that we perceive but a tiny segment of earth and 
sky. But the literary artist gazes in all directions, 
wonders about everything, ponders everything, follows 
up every stream to its secret springs, snatches the masks 
off the masqueraders. He is the eternal Adam—a new 
creature in a new world, curious, inquisitive, interroga¬ 
tive; he must give everything a name of his own choos¬ 
ing. Nothing is staled by usage, every incident is an 
adventure, every day a new era. Chaucer travels forty 
or fifty miles in company with a score of people, some of 
them commonplace, some of them coarse and crude, only 
a few of them persons that you or I would care about or be 
interested in, no odds how long we traveled with them. 
But Chaucer has no peace of mind until he has studied 
and understood each member of the group, winding 
through the labyrinth of word, manner, and deed till he 
has penetrated into the secretest and sacredest recesses 
of personality and temperament. He is curious about 



The Teaching of English 


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them — that is all. He cannot help asking, “What 
manner of men are these? What is below the surface?” 
Robert Browning casually opens a book containing the 
record of a murder trial, sensational, tawdry, sordid, such 
a story as you and I often glance at in the newspaper. 
But he is curious about it. Who is guilty: the man, 
the woman, the lover? What is the truth here? And 
out of it he evolves the Ring and the Book , in which he 
reveals the truth from every angle, as each person involved 
in the story saw it. All literature bears witness to the 
keen interest that the makers of literature take in human 
life, in all the facts and facets of existence. 

And they have not only interest in the scenes and 
situations in life, but sympathetic fellowship with the 
characters that “strut and fret their hour upon the 
stage. ” None but Maupassant and a few of his followers 
remain aloof from the personages they have translated 
from the world to the pages of their books. A Shake¬ 
speare feels kinship with a Lear, with a Falstaff, a Hamlet, 
a Shylock, with a Rosalind, a Beatrice, a Juliet. He 
pictures them forth, divergent and heterogeneous, without 
prejudice or personal bias, with sympathetic appreciation 
because each is a member of the human tribe to which he 
himself belongs, because each one is Shakespeare, Shake¬ 
speare is each one. A Whitman enfolds every class of 
humanity within his brotherly arms; an O. Henry or 
Edna Ferber are near of kin to laborers, clerks, shop girls, 
show girls. The very beasts of the field and forest are 
adopted as members of the clan of Burns, Thoreau, and 
Uncle Remus. In this all-embracing, all-comprehending 
sympathy literary artists are unique among men; they 
and children are the only true democrats. 



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Finally, literary people are so constituted, so endowed 
that they can read intuitively the riddles of life, can lighten 
The heavy and the weary weight 
Of all this unintelligible world. 

By virtue of the celestial radiance within them, they cast 
an illumination into the darkest mysteries of life and 
death. The universe is confused, formless, chaotic; good 
and evil, joy and sorrow, beauty and ugliness, divinity 
and bestiality, lie mixed, it would seem, inextricably, 
without apparent plan or order. What is life for? What 
is our relation to our fellows and to God? W T hy does God 
suffer crime and grief, sickness and sorrow, to disturb his 
world? What does it all mean? Hosts of vital questions 
throng our minds. 

The creator of literature is the creator of order out of 
this weltering chaos. He does it by abstraction, selection, 
and recombination. If I may compare great things with 
less, it is like the child’s game of jackstraws. We tumble 
down upon the floor a handful of sticks of different shapes 
and colors, mixed, shapeless. The literary artist draws 
out the sticks one by one, placing those of like color, of 
like shape and size, in their separate places; and out of 
this material he may fashion whatever may seem good 
to him. Or, if I may compare great things with greater, 
God has sent the artist, as He sent His great Son, to 
guide us through the wilderness of this world, to show 
us the way, the truth, and the life. 

Great books are full of great truths. Not facts, though 
facts are held as in chemical solution within books. The 
maker of literature needs but few facts, and those only as 
hints, or as points of departure. Bryant sees the water- 
fowl flying overhead. The only essential fact is that 



The Teaching of English 


83 


of birds’ migration; but from this he induces the uni¬ 
versal law of human helplessness and divine guidance. 
Tennyson hears the Killarney echoes. The fact is the 
physical nature of echoes; but from this meager and 
unpromising fact he discovers anew the universal law of 
undying human influence. Holmes sees a nautilus shell. 
The fact is the peculiar configuration of the shell; but it 
is sufficient to reveal to him the universal law of man’s 
aspiration. Bare facts are of no value or interest to the 
creator of literature; he is one of the few mortals not 
gulled or browbeaten or obsessed by facts. 

The man of letters is rarely a profound scholar, rarely 
skilled in logic, trained in reason. But he is a pene¬ 
trating observer, he compares and contrasts closely, he 
induces and deduces unerringly, he can recall his knowledge 
and experience and apply it to the matter at issue, he 
can trace cause and effect, he can fathom purposes and 
motives, and, above all, he can imagine with extreme 
vigor and vividness; and when he has done all this, he 
can put his intellectual accomplishment before us in 
such a manner that we are moved to thought and reflec¬ 
tion. His presentation of truth is the more mind¬ 
stirring because he embodies it in stories, in persons, in 
concrete situations, clothes it in attractive language, 
warms and colors it with feeling, and allows it to express 
itself in suggestions. Inasmuch as the material of liter¬ 
ature is drawn from life, then reshaped to resemble life, 
it engages our interest and reflection even as does life 
itself. 

Literature contributes to culture. These five qualities 
the maker of literature possesses in abundance. This is 
what he puts into his literature — all he can put into it, 



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because his writing is life as seen through his personality. 
This is what he has to offer us; through this and this 
alone can he influence us, touch us, teach us. Does 
literature contribute to culture or to efficiency? The 
question answers itself. The five qualities we found in 
culture we find as the preeminent qualities in the creators 
of literature and therefore in literature. Literature con¬ 
tribute to efficiency!—to making a living, to working 
deftly, skillfully, to getting on well with people! Lit¬ 
erary men, who are pathetically unsuccessful from the 
efficient man’s point of view, laughably impractical, 
idealistic, romantic, fanciful—will you engage these 
men to teach your children the secrets of efficiency? 
Nay, they make contributions to culture, or they have 
no place in our education or life. Any attempt to attain 
efficiency through literature, as I understand and have 
defined the term, is farcical; it frustrates the cultural 
purposes and fails to realize the practical purposes of 
education. The only possible effect literature can have 
upon the efficient man is to give him relaxation that he 
may work the harder, and this is possible only because 
the library is a different world from the office. 

It is our insistence upon securing practical results from 
literature that vitiates our method of teaching this subject. 
We are too eager to figure and handle profits, too greedy 
for immediate and tangible returns on our investment of 
time and labor. In our desire—natural enough, of course 
—to assure ourselves that our pupils are ‘‘getting some¬ 
thing out of literature,” we require them to memorize 
passages, retell the ins and outs of intricate plots, pass 
examinations on the meaning of words and on the details 
of authors’ lives —facts, facts, facts, facts that have 



The Teaching of English 


85 


no relation to culture and no relation to efficiency. Oh, 
the futility and falsity of such facts! Do we compel a 
man to take an examination after he has heard a recital 
of music, or seen the mountains or the sea, or taken a 
walk in the woods, or passed through a dark grief, met 
a great man, married a wife, fought in a battle, or had 
any other emotional experience ? Culture grows inaudibly, 
imperceptibly. Perhaps we may never be able to certify 
that a certain poem or story has had effect upon a reader; 
no more can we certify that a certain portion of a 
piece of beef, eaten and assimilated, has furnished cells 
to the thumb on our right hand. All we can be sure of is 
that suitable literature, satisfying our taste and contain¬ 
ing food elements, will, when digested and metabolized, 
become, gradually but inevitably, culture and character. 
The teacher of literature must have a firm and fervent 
faith in the ultimate effect of literature upon life—always 
provided the literature is of the kind that will supply the 
reader with real experience. 

Literature makes no contribution to efficiency. Are 

there, then, no material profits from literature? A 
person gets on better in the world, makes more money, 
holds higher positions, if he can use his mother tongue 
effectively. Do we not enlarge our vocabulary, rectify 
our mistakes, refine our style by reading literature? I 
believe that reading literature has no appreciable effect 
upon the language, spoken or written, of ninety-nine out 
of a hundred readers, and that the hundredth person, in 
endeavoring to secure this value, is likely to lose most 
of the other values. We do not learn to spell by reading 
literature, we do not learn to punctuate, to paragraph, 
we do not carry words over from our reading vocabulary 



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to our speaking and writing vocabulary; even when we 
memorize passages, the words are so imbedded in the 
context that we rarely use them separately. In my 
judgment, the two kinds of intellectual activity engaged 
in, in reading literature and in expressing thought, the 
states of mind, the attitudes, are so divergent, so antago¬ 
nistic, that we cannot transfer the profits over from one 
set of books to the other. We should not use models of 
literature in teaching children to speak and write, because 
when they speak and write we should desire that they be 
absorbed in the practical business of speaking and writing; 
they will get nothing from models of literature that they 
would not get much more easily and economically and 
fully from models of everyday speech and writing. I 
know that Tennyson and Stevenson and scores of other 
authors patterned after their predecessors; but these 
were literary men engaged in literary work—of course, 
they could get value from models of literary art. I 
know that most teachers can derive some language value 
from literature; but we also are literary folk in our way, 
else we would not be teaching. I am speaking here and 
throughout about average young people, the vast majority 
of whom are not literary at all—this is the true demo¬ 
cratic standpoint. Of all the thousands of boys and 
girls I have taught, in the grades, high schools, normal 
schools, and other schools, only a half-dozen were pro¬ 
nouncedly of the literary type. The English teacher 
busying herself with facts, with dates and names, the 
pupils using up their time in searching out definitions, 
tracing out allusions, studying the style, sentence, and 
paragraph structure—that teacher, those pupils, are inter¬ 
fering with the one value that literature can give—and 



The Teaching of English 


87 


a very great value it may be—in the useless endeavor to 
secure benefits that literature is not designed to give, 
cannot, from its very nature, give. Oh, yes, you can 
make a book of literature practical—and you can use 
the book to drive a nail, but it injures the book and 
doesn’t drive the nail very effectively. 

Literature can contribute to culture—note can , note 
contribute . Some of u0English teachers are prone to over -1 
emphasize literature as a cultural force. It can, at best, 
make contributions, provide a part of the necessary food 
and exercise. In so far as the literature read helps to 
beget in the reader these five qualities that characterize 
culture, in so far as literature produces improvement 
in these respects in his attitude toward life, toward 
persons in the actual world, in so far as it becomes real 
experience, to that extent is it a cultural force. And 
in order that it may be a great force the absorption of 
the cultural properties in literature and their application 
to life must be continued through years. Most of our 
pupils would get larger cultural returns from literature 
if our methods of dealing with literature were not so 
pitifully wrong; but, no matter how perfect our methods, 
there would be still a number of our pupils who, by 
reason of temperament or “set of mind,” can extract 
but a minimum of culture from literature. They may 
get it from some other art or from nature, they may get 
it from experience, from contact with the realities of life, 
from parents and friends, from farming, teaching, travel¬ 
ing, from falling sick or falling in love. There are some 
persons who must work from without in, who change them¬ 
selves subjectively by acting objectively, who must get 
their culture as they get their education, by physical 
7 




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activity, by affecting people. Now, you cannot alter a 
book. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair may influence you, but 
you cannot, except in a quibbling use of the term, influ¬ 
ence Vanity Fair: it is fixed for all time; so that those 
who derive power almost altogether by the exercise of 
their own power over others can get little from the book. 
Let us recognize this fact. Let us be humble in the 
realization that culture does not abide with us or alone 
in our subject. We know how great is our own indebted¬ 
ness to literature for what culture we possess, we know 
how admirably fitted literature is to communicate culture 
to others. I would magnify and glorify literature for its 
gracious offices; but that same literature has taught me 
how diversified and myriad-minded are the children of 
men, and from how many sources they may draw the 
elements of beauty, charity, faith, power, and inspiration. 

Is the language group cultural or practical? And 
now, what of the other group of English subjects, the 
language group: composition, grammar and rhetoric, and 
the forms of - oral and written expression, with all the 
details involved in each? Are they cultural or practical? 
Let us examine each one separately—but as briefly as 
possible. 

Composition, whether oral or written, has as its chief 
purpose the selecting and organizing of ideas on a given 
subject according to a preconceived plan, for this is what 
we do when we really compose. Its chief value, then, 
is that it gives training in constructive thinking: the 
finding, limiting, and stating of a theme; the collection 
and examination of material and the inclusion or rejec¬ 
tion of parts of this material, depending upon whether 
they are or are not useful in the development of the 



The Teaching of English 


89 


leading idea; the arrangement of this material in such a 
way as to bring out this leading idea; and finally the 
expression, oral or written—this last being, in many 
respects, the least important part of the process. This, 
observe, exactly parallels the process of constructive 
thinking in any subject. Obviously, long-continued 
repetition of this round of activities under guidance— 
provided always the subjects are recognized and felt to 
be real situations and problems of life—will assist in 
training the mind to think. 

But a well-trained mind is a requisite both in the cul¬ 
tured and in the practical man. Does composition then 
contribute both to culture and to efficiency? Theo¬ 
retically, yes, but practically no. Only a small pro¬ 
portion of students can really compose—that is, think 
through—any but narrow, practical, commonplace sub¬ 
jects, those subjects immediately before them, directly 
concerning their lives. They cannot create, they can 
only compose, and that only in a limited field; they 
cannot grapple with the larger truths of life, they must 
deal with facts, concrete, material facts. We try to 
make them cultured by having them write short stories, 
literary essays and descriptions, orations, even poetry, in 
the fond belief that they can attain culture in this way. 
But not one effort out of a thousand, from high-school 
boys and girls at least, is worth writing or reading. The 
energy expended is therefore largely wasted; it accom¬ 
plishes nothing, is abortive. Failure in that which we 
undertake of our own initiative may sometimes be edu¬ 
cative; but failure in a task imposed upon us is depress¬ 
ing, debilitating; it secures for us nothing, in education 
or culture. What we can get from composition is some 



90 


The New Democracy in 


degree of mental training of the kind and on the sub¬ 
jects needed in the efficient life—logical, practical 
thinking on useful subjects, in the forms of expression 
most used, and therefore most useful, in ordinary life. 
Doubtless this has some bearing on the ultimate develop¬ 
ment of culture—I believe it has; but the practical value 
is paramount, and the other value will be secured most 
certainly, if it be secured at all, as a by-product. 

Grammar and rhetoric consist of the analysis of the 
laws and principles underlying expression. Neither 
subject is of any but the slightest value in developing 
our appreciation of beauty, enriching our emotions, 
giving us wide interests or keen sympathies. As for 
mental training through these subjects, the thought 
processes are so restricted that they provide no general 
training, and the subject matter is of such a nature that 
it is valuable as knowledge useful in the practical affairs 
of life or not valuable at all. We should include in 
grammar only those facts and rules that have immediate 
and unquestionable influence on correct language (and 
that would make but a tiny volume), and in rhetoric 
only those facts and laws that concern the common 
forms of expression used by the common person in the 
common business of life. We should eliminate the 
rhetoric of literature as out of place in a subject that 
prepares for efficiency, and we should introduce the 
rhetoric of literature in the classes in literature, as 
belonging to the world of culture. 

I am aware that there are those who say that attempting 
to produce literature in the rhetoric and composition 
classes increases the students’ appreciation of literature 
and that therefore this activity has cultural value. My 



The Teaching of English 


91 


own experience has led me to believe that this production 
of imitation literature must be continued for a long time 
before it increases the students’ appreciation of literature, 
and even then it is appreciation only of the outward 
forms and of the difficulties of creating them. If we 
have two periods for teaching literary appreciation, we 
should not spend one period in reading literature and 
the other in writing imitations of it; we should spend the 
first period in reading literature and the other in reading 
more literature. 

As for the forms of oral and written language, pro¬ 
nunciation and enunciation, spelling and punctuation, 
and the rest, they have but a borrowed value, they have 
importance only as they are needed in expressing the 
content; if the content is practical, the forms are practical. 
The only compelling reason why we should spell correctly 
is because we are thus rated higher in the estimation 
of others. If we spell incorrectly, we impair our stand¬ 
ing, our chances for success. Observance of these forms 
and conventions gives, at most, but the faintest, most 
untrustworthy indications of culture; it may be found 
where no culture is, and it may be absent from the 
finest culture; while, on the other hand, the relation of 
these forms to efficiency is close and unmistakable. 

Literature, cultural; language group, practical. The 
language subjects, then, are, in my judgment, entirely 
practical subjects, as truly as literature is entirely cul¬ 
tural. We should hold them apart rigidly. If they are 
fused in the teaching methods, they will be confused in 
their values. We should teach these subjects at different 
periods, we should credit them separately, we should, if 
possible, have them taught by different teachers, or by a 



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The New Democracy in 


teacher with a dual personality, one who has business¬ 
like, practical efficiency and rich, genuine culture. 

These are my articles of faith, thus set forth at length. 
Should the English subjects be cultural or practical? 
The English subjects should be cultural and practical 
—the one branch cultural, the other branch practical. 
Neither culture nor efficiency is sufficient to make the 
complete, symmetrical, well-equipped individuality; 
neither should be the sole aim of school education. 
English teachers should hold themselves happy that 
their subject lends itself so naturally to the great funda¬ 
mentals of education. Let them not perpetuate the 
mistake of trying to make both departments of their 
subject both cultural and practical, but rather hold the 
one sacred to culture and the other as sacred to efficiency. 



The Teaching of English 


OUTLINES FOR STUDY 

I. MAKING ENGLISH DEMOCRATIC 

PAGE 

1. Democracy in government.i 

2. Democracy in the schools.2 

3. Aristocracy in the teaching of English.3 

a. The language-composition branch.3 

(1) Theme subjects.4 

(2) Rhetoric.5 

b. Literature.5 

(1) Materials.6 

(a) The old and the new.7 

(b) Chronological sequence.8 

(2) Methods.9 

(3) “Literary” literature.10 

c. English has been aristocratic.11 

d. Facing the problem.12 

4. Democracy in the teaching of English.13 

a. The language-composition activities .... 13 

(1) Forms of discourse.15 

(2) Speech and writing.15 

(3) Technical elements.16 

(4) Use of models.16 

(5) Summary.17 

b. Literature.17 

(1) Class work.17 

(2) Individual, guided reading.18 

5. Conclusion.21 


93 





















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The New Democracy in 


II. THE PALACE OF PEDAGOGY 

1. The Palace of Art.22 

2. The Palace of Pedagogy.23 

3. The “English Wing” in the Palace.25 

4. Value of English for life.26 

5. Fundamental needs in English.• 27 

a. Rapid silent reading..27 

b. Love of good literature.28 

(1) Errors in teaching literature.29 

(a) Too much analysis.29 

(b) Emphasis on history of literature . 31 

(2) The better method. 33 

(a) Many books, not few. 33 

(b) Recognition of grades of merit . 34 

c. Use of mother tongue.36 

(1) Voice training. 3 6 

(2) Vocabulary building and diction . -37 

(а) Idiomatic speech.38 

(б) Slang. 39 

(c) Literary bias.42 

(3) Types of language activity. 43 

(a) Conversation.44 

( b ) Discussion. 45 

X (c) Explanation.46 

(d) Informal argument. 47 

(e) SpeeclVmaking.50 

(/) Story-telling.51 

(g) Letter’writing.52 

{h) Various written forms.S3 

(i) Importance of oral types ... 53 

6. English in the higher institutions.54 

7. The Palace of Art and the Palace of Pedagogy ... 58 























The Teaching of English 95 


III. DEMOCRATIC IDEALS OF CULTURE AND EFFICIENCY: 
THEIR RELATION TO ENGLISH 

1. Culture.60 

a. What it is not.61 

(1) Not cultivation.61 

(2) Not knowledge.62 

(3) Other misconceptions.63 

b. What constitutes democratic culture .... 63 

(1) Appreciation of beauty.64 

(2) Emotions under control.66 

(3) Many-sided interest in life.67 

(4) Sympathy.68 

(5) A well-trained mind.69 

(6) Summary.70 

2. Culture and efficiency not to be confused .... 71 

3. Democratic efficiency analyzed.72 

4. Culture and efficiency contrasted.73 

5. Both qualities essential in life.75 

6. The school’s contribution to culture and efficiency . . 75 

7. Relation of culture and efficiency to English teaching 76 

a. To literature: qualities of literary artist . . .78 

(1) Appreciation of beauty.78 

(2) Emotional nature.79 

(3) Curiosity about life.80 

(4) Sympathetic fellowship.81 

(5) Power to reveal truth.82 

(6) Literature contributes to culture .... 83 

b. To language.88 

(1) Composition practical.88 

(2) Grammar and rhetoric practical .... 90 

(3) Technique of language practical . . .91 

(4) Language study contributes to efficiency . 91 

c. Literature, cultural; language group, practical. . 91 








































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